Christmas show about king Herod in Dalachów and neighboring villages - analysis of the theatrical genre and language of folklore

Abstract

In this article I analyze four versions of the Christmas show about king Herod - one of the twentieth century (the turn of the 70s and 80s) and three contemporary (2012). In the first part I examine the influence of pagan beliefs and Christian religion on the analyzed habit, and I also look for its roots in medieval and folk theatre genres. Pointing to the differences and similarities between them and the show about king Herod, I mention: liturgical drama, mystery, nativity play, morality, interlude and carnival. In the second part I analyze the language of folklore on the basis of the collected material. Following Jerzy Bartmiński I point out the main features of the language that we find in the tested habit. These include: typifying characters, the use of augmentatives and diminutives, the use of repetition, parallelism and symbols, and dialogism and variations of show about Herod.