Abstract
This paper focuses on the protagonist as a role model in Jesuit school plays. For the purposes of comparison, a thematically unified body of Latin plays featuring St.
John of Nepomuk staged in the Bohemian Province between 1700 and 1750 was selected. The John of Nepomuk character is adapted to the age of the performers.
Thus some plays present him as a pious child, a good student and an eager altar boy to be imitated by the youngest actors, while other show him as a student resisting worldly temptations that cross his path of morality and discipline. Yet another group of plays introduces John's followers struggling to promote his cult and stresses the importance of complex education for proper understanding and reverence of the Saint.
Both content and language were tailored for the respective levels of study. Pieces intended for the youngest boys typically employ a dynamic plot and humorous, even mischievous elements.
Serious allegorical plays for older students were devised to help them memorise ingenious maxims, extensive monologues and elaborate rhetorical structures. The paper concludes with an outline of the planned annotated edition of the plays including their translation into Czech.