Büchner, Georg

Büchner, Georg (gā`ôrk bükh`nər), 1813–37, German dramatist. He was a student of medicine and a political agitator. He died at the age of 24, leaving a powerful drama, Danton's Death (1835, tr. 1928), a pessimistic view of the French Revolution and revolutionary politics; a fragmentary tragedy, Woyzeck (1837, tr. 1928), a psychological study of an alienated character that Alban Berg adapted for his opera Wozzeck; and a comedy, Leonce and Lena (1850, tr. 1928). Büchner greatly admired the poet J. M. R. Lenz, whom he made the hero of a novella, Lenz (1838, tr. 1955), which he never completed. His plays, unorthodox in subject and style, were not staged until many decades after his death.

Bibliography

See collections of his plays ed. by V. Price (tr. 1971) and M. Hamburger (tr. 1972); studies by A. H. J. Knight (1951) and R. Hauser (1974).

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Büchner, Georg

(born Oct. 17, 1813, Goddelau, Hesse-Darmstadt—died Feb. 19, 1837, Zürich, Switz.) German dramatist. As a medical student, he became involved in revolutionary politics and was forced to flee to Zürich. There he wrote plays marked by vivid imagination and unconventional structure, combining extreme naturalism with visionary power; he is regarded as a forerunner of the Expressionist movement. His first play, Danton's Death (1835), a drama of the French Revolution, was followed by Leonce and Lena (1836), a satire on the illusions of Romanticism. His last play, Woyzeck (1836), anticipated the social drama of the 1890s with its compassion for the poor and oppressed; it became the basis of a famous opera by Alban Berg.

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Büchner, Georg 

Born Oct. 17, 1813, in Goddelau; died Feb. 19, 1837, in Zürich. German writer. Son of a doctor; brother of the philosopher L. Büchner.

At the universities of Strasbourg and Giessen, where he studied medicine and natural science, Büchner became fascinated with the ideas of the Great French Revolution and Utopian socialism. While a member of the revolutionary Society of the Rights of Man, Büchner enlisted peasants and artisans into the organization. The words “Peace to the huts, war on the palaces!” that open The Hessian Provincial Deputy, a proclamation Büchner wrote in 1834, were heard for the first time in Germany. After the organization was disbanded, Büchner lectured at the University of Zürich. Büchner’s first work is a realistic drama Danton’s Death (1835), in which the French Revolution is shown in its historical greatness and contradictions. The comedy Leonce and Lena, which was published in 1839, combines mild humor with irate satire directed toward the German dwarf states. In his best play, Woyzeck (1837), Büchner showed the social oppression and the awakening of class consciousness among the working people. The short story Lenz (1839) expresses Büchner’s aesthetic views. Although he was a materialist with regard to his world view, he opposed Schiller’s idealization of images and his romantic subjectivism.

WORKS

Werke und Briefe. Wiesbaden, 1958.
In Russian translation:
Sochineniia. (Foreword by A. Dzhivelegov.) Moscow-Leningrad, 1935.

REFERENCES

Turaeva, E. Ia. Dramaturgiia G. Biukhnera i ee stsenicheskoe voploshchenie. Moscow, 1952.
Dmitriev, A. (Foreword.) In Büchner, G. Smert’ Dantona. Moscow, 1954. (Text of book is in German.)
Meyer, H. G. Büchner und seine Zeit. Berlin, 1960.
G. Büchner. Published by W. Martens. Darmstadt, 1965.
Schröder, J. G. Büchners “Leonce und Lena.” Munich, 1966.
Johann, E. G. Büchner in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten. [Hamburg, 1969.] (Bibliography, pages 171-74.)
P’esy, proza, pis’ma. Moscow, 1972.

E. IA. TURAEVA