Franz Seraphicus Grillparzer (15 January 1791 – 21 January 1872) was an Austrian writer who was considered to be the leading Austrian dramatist of the 19th century. His plays were and are frequently performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna. He also wrote the oration for his longtime friend Ludwig van Beethoven's funeral, as well as the epitaph for his friend Franz Schubert.

Though he wrote during the period of Romanticism, Grillparzer's poetic language owes far more to the period of Classicism which reigned during his formative years. Committed to the classical ideals of aesthetic beauty and morality, his plots shy away from the realism which developed during his time, preferring instead to use the theater to address spiritual values, which in the words of the dying queen of his Libussa, would only come after the period of Materialism had passed. Due to the identity-creating use of his works, especially after World War II, he was named as the national poet of Austria.

Life and career

thumb|left|Plaque commemorating Franz Grillparzer acting as director of the , Johannesgasse 6, 1st district of Vienna

Franz Grillparzer was born in Vienna, Austria. His father, the unsuccessful lawyer E. J. Grillparzer, whose fortunes were ruined by Napoleon's invasion, was a severe pedant and a staunch upholder of the liberal traditions of the reign of Joseph II. His mother, Anna Franziska, was a nervous, highly-strung woman, The poetic influence of Lope de Vega and Pedro Calderón de la Barca is also evident.

The Dream, a Life, Grillparzer's technical masterpiece, is in form perhaps even more influenced by Spanish drama; it is also more of what Goethe called a confession. The aspirations of Rustan, an ambitious young peasant, are reflected in the hero's 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 belief that all earthly ambitions and aspirations are vanity; the only true happiness is contentment with one's lot and inner peace. It was the first of Grillparzer's dramas that did not end tragically.

Assessment

Grillparzer was an important figure in the Viennese theater of the 1840s when his greatest dramatic works were produced. Together with Christian Friedrich Hebbel, he rates as the most influential dramatist of the mid-nineteenth century. While most of his best plays originate in the age of Romanticism, his works could not be classified as Romantic. His language and characters reflect the earlier sensibilities of neo-classicism, exhibited in plays like Sappho and Das goldene Vlies which treats the subject matter of Jason bringing Medea back to Greece. In these plays he deals with classical themes as well as subject matter. One important characteristic of the age is that aesthetic beauty and virtue are seen as interrelated. In his historical plays like König Ottokars Glück und Ende, he expresses the Enlightenment optimism that humankind can put its affairs in order and realize an age of peace an harmony. This is a common theme in Austrian thought from this period. Some have suggested that this is a reflection of their multi-ethnic Austrian state. Ottkar, the thirteenth century Bohemian king, wants to subjugate his neighbors, a thinly veiled reference to the recently defeated Napoleon. However, the play ends on an upbeat note.

Although Grillparzer was essentially a dramatist, his lyric poetry is in the intensity of its personal note hardly inferior to Lenau's; and the bitterness of his later years found vent in biting and stinging epigrams that spared few of his greater contemporaries. As a prose writer, he has left one powerful novella, The Poor Musician (Der arme Spielmann, 1848), and a volume of 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 express the mood of Austria in the epoch of intellectual thraldom that lay between the Napoleonic Wars and the Revolution of 1848.

Legacy and cultural references

  • He is honoured in Austria with a pastry, the Grillparzer Torte.
  • Outside Austria, the modern American reader is perhaps most familiar with Grillparzer via disparaging references to him in the popular John Irving novel The World According to Garp. The book features a story within a story entitled The Pension Grillparzer. Grillparzer is also referenced in Irving's novel A Son of the Circus, in which the protagonist had studied in Vienna.
  • He is mentioned in the W. G. Sebald novel Vertigo.
  • In the tenth of the German language film series, Die Zweite Heimat by Edgar Reitz, Reinhard and Esther read from a Grillparzer poem comparing the half moon to an incomplete, ambiguous life.
  • In Vienna's Inner City, was named after him in 1873. There is also a Grillparzerstraße in several other cities, including Graz, Linz, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Berlin, Dresden, Freiburg / Br., Hamburg, Mannheim and Munich. Double designations in Vienna resulting from incorporations were withdrawn.
  • After his death, a monument was erected in the Volksgarten in Vienna; also by Leopold Schrödl in Baden.
  • His portrait adorned the 100 Schilling banknote from 1954. The Mint Austria minted a 25 Schilling commemorative coin (bust picture) in 1964 and a 20 Schilling course coin (bust picture and Burgtheater ) in 1991 .
  • The Austrian Post issued four occasions (1931, 1947, 1972 and 1991) special stamps with portraits of the writer.
  • The Grillparzer Prize and the Grillparzer Ring were named after him.
  • The asteroid 30933 was named Grillparzer in his honor.
  • In Linz and in St. Pölten, elementary schools are named after him.
  • In "The World According to Garp" by John Irving, the name Grillparzer is referenced through a story within the novel titled "The Pension Grillparzer." This story is part of the narrative created by the main character, T.S. Garp.

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File:Wien.Volksgarten09.jpg|Monument in the Volksgarten, Vienna, Austria

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Works

Dramas

thumb|Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen, director Nikolay Masalitinov

thumb|Poster of the play Melusina, “Romantic magic opera” in 3 acts, libretto by Franz Grillparzer, music by [[Conradin Kreutzer (Representation of April 9, 1835).]]

  • Blanka von Kastilien (Blanche of Castile, 1807–09)
  • Spartakus (Spartacus, 1809)
  • Alfred der Große (Alfred the Great, 1809)
  • Die Ahnfrau (1817)
  • Sappho (1818)
  • The Golden Fleece (1821), trilogy consisting of
  • Der Gastfreund
  • Die Argonauten
  • Medea
  • Melusina (1822–23)
  • König Ottokars Glück und Ende (King Ottocar: His Rise and Fall]], 1823)
  • ' (1826)
  • Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen (1831)
  • ' (1834)
  • Tristia ex Ponto (1835)
  • Weh dem, der lügt (1838)
  • Libussa (1848)
  • Ein Bruderzwist im Hause Habsburg (1848)
  • Die Jüdin von Toledo (The Jewess of Toledo, 1851)
  • Esther (a fragment, 1861)

Novellas

  • Das Kloster bei Sendomir (1827)
  • Der arme Spielmann (1848)

See also

  • List of Austrian writers
  • List of Austrians
  • Jenny Weleminsky, who translated Sappho and several of Grillparzer's poems into Esperanto

Notes

  • Works by Grillparzer from the eLibrary Austria Project (elib Austria full txts)
  • Literary Encyclopedia: Grillparzer, Franz
  • Grillparzer-Lebenslauf