Otto Ludwig

Ludwig, Otto 

Born Feb. 12, 1813, in Eisfeld; died Feb. 25, 1865, in Dresden. German writer.

In Ludwig’s drama The Hereditary Forester (1850, published 1853) the realistic portrayal of characters and the social milieu is combined with elements of the “tragedy of fate.” His attempts (such as the tragedy The Maccabees, 1854) to create a historical monumental dramaturgy were not very successful. The realist tendencies maniest themselves most clearly in the novella Between Heaven and Earth (1856) and in Ludwig’s short stories, which depict the life of the petite bourgeoisie and artisans of Thuringia. Ludwig’s Shakespeare Studies (published in 1871) is a contribution to the theory of drama.

WORKS

Gesammelte Schriften, vols. 1-6. Leipzig, 1891.
Sämtliche Werke, vols. 1-6. Edited by P. Merker. Munich-Leipzig, 1912-22.

REFERENCES

Mering, F. “Otto Liudvig.” In his Literaturno-kriticheskie stat’i, vol. 2.
Moscow-Leningrad, 1934.
Meyer, A. Die asthetischen Anschauungen Otto Ludwigs. Winterthur, 1957.