Frank Wedekind
| Frank Wedekind | |
|---|---|
| Benjamin Franklin Wedekind | |
| Birthday | |
| Birthplace | Hanover, German Confederation |
| Died | |
| Nationality | German |
| Occupation | |
Wedekind, Frank
(frängk vā`dəkĭnt), 1864–1918, German dramatist. He was also a journalist and publicist, and he worked on the staff of Simplicissimus. A forerunner of the expressionists, he employed grotesque fantasy and unconventional characters in order to attack the bourgeois ideals and hypocrisy of his society. Wedekind was particularly concerned with sexual themes, stressing the primacy of man's instincts. His plays include Frühlings Erwachen (1891, tr. The Awakening of Spring, 1909), Der Erdgeist (1895, tr. Earth Spirit, 1914), and Die Büchse der Pandora (1903, tr. Pandora's Box, 1918). Alban Berg compiled the libretto for his opera Lulu (1934) from the latter two.Bibliography
See study by S. Gittleman (1969, repr. 1980).
Wedekind, Frank
Born July 24, 1864, in Hanover: died Mar. 9, 1918, in Munich. German writer.
By education Wedekind was a lawyer. In the 1890’s he satirized the German Empire under the reign of William II in verses that he published in Simplicissimus. In his play Spring’s Awakening (1891), the bourgeois figures are grotesques. The influence of F. Nietzsche became apparent in the play The Earth Spirit (1895) and its sequel Pandora’s Box (produced 1901, published 1904), as well as in the novella Mine-Haha (1903) and in the plays Hidalla (1904) and Wetterstein Castle (1910). In his best play, The Marquis of Keith (1901), Wedekind shows the capitalist world as overrun with crime. In the plays Samson (1914) and Heracles (1917) he portrays lonely humanists. In style and in mood Wedekind is a forerunner of expressionism.
WORKS
Gesammelte Werke, vols. 1-9. Munich, 1924.Prosa. Dramen. Verse. Munich, 1954.
In Russian translation:
Sobr. soch., vols. 1-8. [St. Petersburg] 1912-19.
REFERENCES
Golicher, A. Zhizn’ sovremennika. Mo scow-Leningrad, 1929.Istoriia nemetskoi literatury, vol. 4. Moscow, 1968. Chapter 35.
Mann, H. “Erinnerungen an F. Wedekind.” In his book Essays, vol. 1. Berlin, 1954.
I. V. VOLEVICH