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GRILLPARZER, FRANZ (1791-1872)
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See also:GRILLPARZER, See also:FRANZ (1791-1872) , the greatest dramatic poet of See also:Austria, was See also:born in See also:Vienna, on the 15th of See also:January 1791. His See also:father, severe, pedantic, a staunch upholder of the liberal traditions of the reign of See also:Joseph II., was an See also:advocate
later, when the See also:corps was incorporated with that of See also:England, he retired, and devoted his See also:attention to See also:civil See also:engineering and See also:mining. He studied See also:chemistry, See also:mineralogy and mining for two years in See also:London under See also: On " Griffith's valuation " the various See also:local and public assessments were made. His extensive investigations furnished him with ample material for improving his geological map, and the second edition was published in 1835. A third edition on a larger See also:scale (1 in. to 4 m.) was issued under the See also:Board of Ordnance in 1839, and it was further revised in 1855. For this See also:great work and his other services to See also:science he was awarded the See also:Wollaston See also:medal by the Geological Society in 1854. In 185o he was made chairman of the Irish Board of Works, and in 1858 he was created a See also:baronet. He died in Dublin on the 22nd of See also:September 1878. Among his many geological works the following may be mentioned: Outline of the Geology of Ireland (1838); See also:Notice respecting the Fossils of the See also:Mountain See also:Limestone of Ireland, as compared with those of Great See also:Britain, and also with the Devonian See also:System (1842) ; A Synopsis of the Characters of the Carboniferous Limestone Fossils of Ireland (1844) (with F. McCoy) ; A Synopsis of the See also:Silurian Fossils of Ireland (1846) (with F. McCoy). See See also:memoirs in Quart. Journ. Geol. See also:Soc. See also:xxxv. 39; and Geol. Mag., 1878, p. 524, with bibliography. of some See also:standing; his See also:mother, a See also:nervous, finely-strung woman, ' belonged to the well-known musical See also:family of Sonnleithner. After a desultory See also:education, Grillparzer entered in 1807 the university of Vienna as a student of See also:jurisprudence; but two years later his father died, leaving the family in straitened circumstances, and Franz, the eldest son, was obliged to turn to private tutoring. In 1813 he received an See also:appointment in the See also:court library, but as this was unpaid, he accepted after some months a clerkship that offered more solid prospects, in the See also:Lower See also:Austrian See also:revenue See also:administration. Through the See also:influence of See also:Graf See also:Stadion, the See also:minister of See also:finance, he was in 1818 appointed poet to the Hofburgtheater, and promoted to the Hofkammer (See also:exchequer); in 1832 he became director of the archives of that See also:department, and in 1856 retired, from the civil service with the See also:title of Hofrat. Grillparzer had little capacity for an See also:official career and regarded his See also:office merely as a means of See also:independence. In 1817 the first See also:representation of his tragedy See also:Die Ahnfrau made him famous, but before this he had written a See also:long tragedy in iambics, Blanca von Castilien (1807–1809), which was obviously modelled on See also:Schiller's See also:Don See also:Carlos; and even more promising were the dramatic fragments See also:Spartacus and See also:Alfred der See also:Grosse (1809). Die Ahnfrau is a gruesome " See also:fate-tragedy " in the See also:trochaic measure of the See also:Spanish See also:drama, already made popular by Adolf See also:Milliner in his Schuld; but Grillparzer's work is a See also:play of real poetic beauties, and reveals an See also:instinct for dramatic as opposed to merely theatrical effect, which distinguishes it from other " fate-dramas " of the See also:day. Unfortunately its success led to the poet's being classed for the best See also:part of his See also:life with playwrights like Milliner and See also:Houwald. Die Ahnfrau was followed by See also:Sappho (1818), a drama of a very different type; in the classic spirit of See also:Goethe's See also:Tasso, Grillparzer unrolled the tragedy of poetic See also:genius, the renunciation of earthly happiness imposed upon the poet by his higher See also:mission. In 1821 appeared Das See also:golden Vliess, a trilogy which had been interrupted in 1819 by the See also:death of the poet's mother—in a See also:fit of depression she had taken her own life—and a subsequent visit to See also:Italy. Opening with a powerful dramatic prelude in one act, Der Gastfreund, Grillparzer depicts in Die Argonauten See also:Jason's adventures in his quest for the Fleece; while See also:Medea, a tragedy of See also:noble classic proportions, contains the culminating events of the See also:story which had been so often dramatized before. The theme is similar to that of Sappho, but the scale on which it is represented is larger; it is again the tragedy of the See also:heart's See also:desire, the conflict of the See also:simple happy life with that sinister See also:power—be it genius, or ambition—which upsets the See also:equilibrium of life. The end is See also:bitter disillusionment, the only See also:consolation renunciation. Medea, her revenge stilled, her See also:children dead, bears the fatal Fleece back to See also:Delphi, while Jason is See also:left to realize the nothingness of human striving and earthly happiness. For his See also:historical tragedy See also:Konig Ottokars See also:Gluck and Ende (1823, but owing to difficulties with the See also:censor, not performed until 1825), Grillparzer See also:chose one of the most picturesque events in Austrian domestic See also:history, the conflict of Ottokar of Bohemia with See also:Rudolph von See also:Habsburg. With an almost See also:modern See also:realism he reproduced the See also:motley See also:world of the old chronicler, at the same See also:time not losing sight of the needs of the See also:theatre; the fall of Ottokar is but another See also:text from which the poet preached the futility of endeavour and the vanity of worldly greatness. A second historical tragedy, Ein treuer Diener seines Herrn (1826, performed 1828), attempts to embody a more heroic See also:gospel; but the subject—the superhuman self-effacement of Bankbanus before See also:Duke See also:Otto of See also:Meran—proved too uncompromising an See also:illustration of See also:Kant's categorical imperative of See also:duty to be palatable in the theatre. With these historical tragedies began the darkest ten years in the poet's life. They brought him into conflict with the Austrian censor—a conflict which grated on Grillparzer's sensitive soul, and was aggravated by his own position as a servant of the See also:state; in 1826 he paid a visit to Goethe in See also:Weimar, and was able to compare the en-lightened conditions which prevailed in the little Saxon duchy with the intellectual thraldom of Vienna. To these troubles were added more serious See also:personal worries. In the See also:winter of1820–1821 he had met for the first time Katharina See also:Frohlich (18or–1879), and the acquaintance rapidly ripened into love on both sides; but whether owing to a presentiment of mutual incompatibility, or merely owing to Grillparzer's conviction that life had no happiness in See also:store for him, he shrank from See also:marriage. Whatever the cause may have been, the poet was plunged into an See also:abyss of misery and despair to which his See also:diary bears heart-rending See also:witness; his sufferings found poetic expression in the See also:fine See also:cycle of poems bearing the significant title Tristia ex Panto (1835). Yet to these years we owe the completion of two of Grillparzer's greatest dramas, See also:Des Meeres and der Liebe Wellen (1830 and Der Traum, ein Leben (1834). In the former tragedy, a dramatization of the story of See also:Hero and Leander, he returned to the Hellenic world of Sappho, and produced what is perhaps the finest of all See also:German love-tragedies. His mastery of dramatic technique is here combined with a ripeness of poetic expression and with an insight into See also:motive which suggests the modern psychological drama of See also:Hebbel and See also:Ibsen; the old See also:Greek love-story of See also:Musaeus is, moreover, endowed with something of that ineffable poetic See also:grace which the poet had borrowed from the great Spanish poets, Lope de See also:Vega and See also:Calderon. Der Traum, ein Leben, Grillparzer's technical masterpiece, is in See also:form perhaps even more Spanish; it is also more of what Goethe called a " See also:confession." The aspirations of Rustan, an ambitious See also:young See also:peasant, are shadowed forth in the hero's See also:dream, which takes up nearly three acts of the play; ultimately Rustan awakens from his nightmare to realize the truth of Grillparzer's own pessimistic See also:doctrine that all earthly ambitions and aspirations are vanity; the only true happiness is contentment with one's See also:lot, " des Innern stiller Frieden and die schuldbefreite Brust." Der Traum, ein Leben was the first of Grillparzer's dramas which did not end tragically, and in 1838 he produced his only See also:comedy, Weh' dem, der lugt. But Weh' dem, der lugt, in spite of its See also:humour of situation, its sparkling See also:dialogue and the originality of its See also:idea—namely, that the hero gains his end by invariably telling the truth, where his enemies as invariably expect him to be lying—was too See also:strange to meet with approval in its day. Its failure was a See also:blow to the poet, who turned his back for ever on the German theatre. In 1836 Grillparzer paid a visit to See also:Paris and London, in 1843 to See also:Athens and See also:Constantinople. Then came the Revolution which struck off the intellectual fetters under which Grillparzer and his contemporaries had groaned in Austria, but the liberation came too See also:late for him. Honours were heaped upon him; he was made a member of the See also:Academy of Sciences; Heinrich See also:Laube, as director of the Burgtheater, reinstated his plays on the repertory; he was in 1861 elected to the Austrian Herrenhaus; his eightieth birthday was a See also:national festival, and when he died in Vienna, on the 21st of January 1872, the See also:mourning of the Austrian See also:people was universal. With the exception of a beautiful fragment, See also:Esther (1861), Grillparzer published no more dramatic See also:poetry after the fiasco of Weh' dem, der lugt, but at his death three completed tragedies were found among his papers. Of these, Die Judin von See also:Toledo, an admirable See also:adaptation from the Spanish, has won a permanent See also:place in the German classical repertory; Ein Bruderzwist See also:im Hause Habsburg is a powerful historical tragedy and Libussa is perhaps the ripest, as it is certainly the deepest, of all Grillparzer's dramas; the latter two plays prove how much was lost by the poet's See also:divorce from the theatre. Although Grillparzer was essentially a dramatist, his lyric poetry is in the intensity of its personal See also:note hardly inferior to See also:Lenau's; and the bitterness of his later years found vent in biting and stinging epigrams that spared few of his greater See also:con-temporaries. As a See also:prose writer, he has left one powerful See also:short story, Der arme Spielmann (1848), and a See also:volume of See also:critical studies on the Spanish drama, which shows how completely he had succeeded in identifying himself with the Spanish point of view. Grillparzer's brooding, unbalanced temperament, his lack of will-power, his pessimistic renunciation and the bitterness which his self-imposed martyrdom produced in him, made him peculiarly adapted to See also:express the See also:mood of Austria in the See also:epoch of intellectual thraldom that See also:lay between the See also:Napoleonic See also:wars and the Revolution of 1848; his poetry reflects exactly the spirit of his people under the Metternich regime, and there is a deep truth behind the description of Der Traum, ein Leben as the Austrian See also:Faust. His fame was in accordance with the general See also:tenor of his life; even in Austria a true understanding for his genius was late in coming, and not until the See also:centenary of 1891 did the German-speaking world realize that it possessed in him a dramatic poet of the first See also:rank; in other words, that Grillparzer was no See also:mere " Epigone " of the classic See also:period, but a poet who, by a rare assimilation of the strength of the Greeks, the imaginative See also:depth of German classicism and the delicacy and grace of the Spaniards, had opened up new paths for the higher dramatic poetry of See also:Europe. Grillparzer's Sdmtliche Werke are edited by A. Sauer, in 20 vols., 5th edition (See also:Stuttgart, 1892–1894) ; also, since the expiry of the See also:copyright in 1901, innumerable cheap reprints. Briefe and Tagebucher, edited by C. Glossy and A. Sauer (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1903). Jahrbuch der Grillparzer-Gesellschaft, edited by K. Glossy (the publication of the Grillparzer Society) (Vienna, 1891 ff.). See also H. Laube, Franz Grillparzers Lebensgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1884) ; J. Volkelt, Franz Grillparzer als Dichter des Tragischen (See also:Nordlingen, 1888) ; E. Reich, Franz Grillparzers Dramen (See also:Dresden, 1894) ; A. Ehrhard, Franz Grill parzer (Paris, 1900) (German See also:translation by M. See also:Necker, See also:Munich, 1902); H. Sittenberger, Grillparzer, sein Leben and Wirken (See also:Berlin, 1904); Gustav Pollak, F. Grillparzer and the Austrian Drama (New See also:York, 1907). Of Grillparzer's works, See also:translations have appeared in See also:English of Sappho (182o, by J. Bramsen; 1846, by E. B. See also: C. See also:Cumming; 1876, by E. See also:Frothingham); and of Medea (1879, by F. W. See also:Thurstan and J. A. Wittmann). See also:Byron's warm admiration of Sappho (Letters and See also:Journals, V. 171) is well known, while See also:Carlyle's See also:criticism, in his See also:essay on German Playwrights (1829), is interesting as expressing the generally accepted estimate of Grillparzer in the first See also:half of the 19th See also:century. See the bibliography in K. Goedeke's Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichlung, 2nd ed., vol. viii. (1905). (J. G. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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