Franz Grillparzer

Franz Grillparzer (born Jan. 15, 1791, Vienna [Austria]—died Jan. 21, 1872, Vienna) was an Austrian dramatist who wrote tragedies that were belatedly recognized as the greatest works of the Austrian stage.

Grillparzer’s father was a lawyer who died in debt in 1809; his markedly neurotic mother committed suicide 10 years later. Grillparzer studied law at the University of Vienna and spent much of his life in government service. Beginning in 1814 as a clerk in the department of revenue, he became a clerk in the treasury (1818) and later director of the treasury archives. His hopes for a higher position were never fulfilled, however, and he retired from government service in 1856.

In 1817 the first performance of Grillparzer’s tragedy Die Ahnfrau (The Ancestress) evoked public interest. Previously he had written a play in blank verse, Blanka von Castilien (Blanche of Castile), that already embodied the principal idea of several later works—the contrast between a quiet, idyllic existence and a life of action. Die Ahnfrau, written in the trochaic Spanish verse form, has many of the outward features of the then-popular “fate tragedy” (Schicksalsdrama), but the characters are themselves ultimately responsible for their own destruction. A striking advance was the swiftly written tragedy Sappho (1818). Here the tragic fate of Sappho, who is depicted as heterosexual, is attributed to her unhappy love for an ordinary man and to her inability to reconcile life and art, clearly an enduring problem for Grillparzer. Work on the trilogy Das Goldene Vlies (1821; The Golden Fleece) was interrupted by the suicide of Grillparzer’s mother and by illness. This drama, with Medea’s assertion that life is not worth living, is the most pessimistic of his works and offers humanity little hope. Once more the conflict between a life of meditation and one of action seems to lead inevitably to renunciation or despair.

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More satisfying, both aesthetically and emotionally, is the historical tragedy König Ottokars Glück und Ende (written 1823, but because of censorship difficulties not performed or published until 1825; King Ottocar, His Rise and Fall). Here the action is drawn from Austrian history, and the rise of Rudolph of Habsburg (the first of Grillparzer’s characters to avoid guilt and tragedy) is contrasted with the fall of the tyrant Ottokar of Bohemia, so that Ottokar’s fate is not presented as representative of all humanity. Grillparzer was disappointed at the reception given to this and a following play and became discouraged by the objections of the censor. Although he loved Katharina Fröhlich (1800–79), whom he had met in the winter of 1820–21, he felt unable to marry, possibly because of a conviction that as an artist he had no right to personal happiness. His misery during these years is reflected not only in his diaries but also in the impressive cycle of poems entitled Tristia ex Ponto (1835).

Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen (1831; The Waves of Sea and Love), often judged to be Grillparzer’s greatest tragedy because of the degree of harmony achieved between content and form, marks a return to the classical theme in treating the story of Hero and Leander, which is, however, interpreted with a psychological insight anticipating the plays of Ibsen. Hero, the priestess, who lacks a true sense of vocation, forgets her vows in her blind passion for Leander and, when her lover is ensnared to his death, she dies of a broken heart. The following of vital instincts is shown to rob the individual of inner harmony and self-possession. Der Traum ein Leben (1834; A Dream Is Life) owes much to Grillparzer’s intensive and prolonged studies of Spanish drama. This Austrian Faust ends happily, for the ambitious young peasant Rustan only dreams the adventures that involve him in crime and awakes to a realization of the vanity of earthly aspirations. Grillparzer’s only comedy, Weh dem, der lügt! (1838; “Woe to Him Who Lies!”), was a failure with the public, chiefly because the theme—the hero succeeds because he tells the truth when everyone thinks he is lying—was too subtle and too serious for comic treatment.

Grillparzer wrote no more for the stage and very little at all after the 1840s. The honours that were heaped on him in old age came too late. In 1861 he was elected to Vienna’s upper legislative house (Herrenhaus), his 80th birthday was the occasion for a national celebration, and his death in Vienna in 1872 was widely mourned. Three tragedies, apparently complete, were found among his papers. Die Jüdin von Toledo (The Jewess of Toledo), based on a Spanish theme, portrays the tragic infatuation of a king for a young Jewish woman. He is only brought back to a sense of his responsibilities after she has been killed at the queen’s command. Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg (Family Strife in Hapsburg), a profound and moving historical tragedy, lacks the theatrical action that would make it successful in performance and is chiefly remarkable for the portrayal of the emperor Rudolph II. Much of Grillparzer’s most mature thought forms the basis of the third play, Libussa, in which he foresees human development beyond the rationalist stage of civilization.

Apart from his critical studies on Spanish drama and a posthumous autobiography, Grillparzer’s finest prose work is Der arme Spielmann (1848), the story of a poor musician who cheerfully accepts life’s failures and dies through his efforts to help others.

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Grillparzer’s work looks back to the great Classical and Romantic achievements and the painful evolution from the disillusionment of idealism to a compromise with reality. Grillparzer was unusually gifted not only as a dramatic poet but also as a playwright capable of creating dramas suitable for performance. Unlike his great predecessors, Goethe and Schiller, he distinguishes between the speech of the cultured person and that of the uneducated. He also introduces colloquialisms, humour, and elements from the popular farce. Although the central dramatic conflict of Grillparzer’s plays is often rooted in his personal problems, it is presented objectively. Grillparzer’s solution is renunciation rather than acceptance. He undoubtedly suffered from the censorship and repression imposed by the Metternich regime, but it is probable that his unhappiness originated principally in an inability to resolve his own difficulties of character.