Franz Grillparzer

Franz Seraphicus Grillparzer (January 15, 1791 - January 21, 1872), Austrian dramatic poet, was born in Vienna.

Later life and final masterpieces

In 1836, Grillparzer paid a visit to Paris and London, in 1843 to Athens and 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 late for him. Honors were heaped upon him; he was made a member of the Academy of Sciences; Heinrich Laube, as director of the Burgtheater, reinstated his plays on the repertory; in 1861, he was elected to the Austrian Herrenhaus; his eightieth birthday was a national festival, and when he died in Vienna, on the January 21, 1872, the mourning of the Austrian people was universal. With the exception of a beautiful fragment, Esther (1861), Grillparzer published no more dramatic poetry after the fiasco of Weh dem, der lügt, but at his death three completed tragedies were found among his papers. Of these, Die Jüdin von Toledo, an admirable adaptation from the Spanish, has won a permanent place in the German classical repertory; Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg is a powerful historical tragedy and Libussa is perhaps the most mature, as it is certainly the deepest, of all Grillparzer's dramas; the latter two plays prove how much was lost by the poets divorce from the theatre.

Related Topics:
1836 - Paris - London - 1843 - Athens - Constantinople - Heinrich Laube - Burgtheater - 1861 - Herrenhaus - January 21 - 1872 - Libussa

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