Grillparzer, Franz

Grillparzer, Franz (fränts grĭl`pärtsər), 1791–1872, Austrian dramatist. His work combines German classicism and exuberant lyricism. Considered Austria's greatest playwright, he wrote Der Traum: ein Leben (1817–34, tr. A Dream is Life, 1946), which influenced Hauptmann and Maeterlinck; a trilogy, Das goldene Vliess (1822, tr. The Guest-Friend, The Argonauts, Medea, 1942); the historical tragedy König Ottokars Glück und Ende (1825, tr. King Ottocar, His Rise and Fall, 1938); the lyric tragedy Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen (1831, tr. Hero and Leander, 1938); Libussa (1844, tr. 1941); and Die Jüdin von Toledo (1855, tr. The Jewess of Toledo, 1953). Grillparzer was also a master of lyric poetry and prose. His finely wrought novella, Der arme Spielmann (1844, tr. The Poor Minstrel, 1915) contains autobiographical elements.

Bibliography

See studies by F. E. Coenen (1951), G. A. Wells (1969), and W. E. Yates (1972).

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Grillparzer, Franz

(born Jan. 15, 1791, Vienna—died Jan. 21, 1872, Vienna) Austrian dramatist. He spent much of his life in government service. His early tragedies include The Ancestress (1817), Sappho (1818), and the pessimistic The Golden Fleece (1821). The Waves of Sea and Love (1831) is often considered his greatest tragedy; another masterpiece is A Dream Is Life (1834), an Austrian Faust. Three other tragedies were found among his papers after his death. His works were belatedly recognized to be among the greatest works of the Austrian stage.

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Grillparzer, Franz 

Born Jan. 15, 1791, in Vienna; died there Jan. 21, 1872. Austrian playwright.

Grillparzer studied law in Vienna and combined careers in literature and the civil service. In 1856 he retired and traveled around Europe. In 1826 he became acquainted with Goethe, and in 1836 in Paris he met L. Börne, who gave a very favorable evaluation of Grillparzer’s first important drama, the “tragedy of fate” The Ancestress (1817). He also became acquainted with Heine, and was a friend of Beethoven.

Grillparzer is the father of modern Austrian drama. His works were pervaded with protest against the reactionary feudal-bureaucratic regime of Chancellor Metternich and the egoistic spirit of emerging capitalist society. Thus, many of his plays were banned by the censor or were received with hostility by bourgeois audiences (for example, the comedy Thou Shalt Not Lie, 1838). However. Grillparzer’s world view was inconsistent: he saw no forces capable of countervailing the old Austria, which he despised, and in the Revolution of 1848–49 in Germany he took the side of the government.

In Grillparzer’s works the traditions of Enlightenment classicism are combined with romanticism and realism and the clarity and austerity of classical composition with romantic lyricism, symbolism, and the fervid fantasy and color of mass scenes. In the tragedy Sappho (1818) he depicted the tragic incompatibility of art and life. In Waves of the Sea and of Love (1831), Grillparzer upheld the freedom of natural craving against religious asceticism. In the plays King Ot-tocar: His Rise and Fall (1825) and The Dream, a Life (1834) he debunked lust for power and conquest and the cult of the strong man, for whom Napoleon served as prototype. Libussa (1844) conveys the humanist dream of a future society. Outstanding among Grillparzer’s short stories is “The Poor Musician” (1848), which is about the fortunes of an oppressed man of the people.

WORKS

Sämtliche Werke, vols. 1–42. Berlin, 1909–48.
In Russian translation:
P’esy. Introductory article and annotations by E. Etkind. Moscow-Leningrad, 1961.
[“Novelly.”] In Avstriiskaia novella XIX v. Moscow. 1959.

REFERENCES

Engels, F. F. Greberu, 9 dek. 1839–5 fevr. 1840. (Letter.) In K. Marx and F. Engels, Iz rannikh proizvedenii. Moscow, 1956. Page 336.
Mering, F. Literaturno-kriticheskie stat’i, vol. 2. Moscow-Leningrad, 1934.
Azadovskii, K. “Gril’partser i ego zarubezhnye kritiki.” Voprosy literatury, 1968, no. 12.
Müller, J. F. Grillparzer. Stuttgart, 1963.
Naumann, W. F. Grillparzer: Das dichterische Werk, 2nd ed. Stuttgart [1967].
Wells, G. A. The Plays of Grillparzer. London [1969].

G. S. SLOBODKIN