In the canon of nineteenth-century German literature, Christian Dietrich Grabbe holds an important, if variably defined, place as an historical dramatist. Early critics grouped him with traditional idealist playwrights Friedrich Schiller and Friedrich Hebbel or identified features of Storm and Stress or Romanticism in his plays. Later critics associated him with his contemporaries Heinrich von Kleist, Georg Büchner, and the Young Germans, or emphasized that he anticipated modern trends to come. In common with twentieth-century dramas are the proto-modernist bitterness, violence, and amoral cynicism in his plays, as well as their ecstatic passion, mixture of bombastic, noble, and crude expression, and panoramic mass scenes. Among later playwrights, Bertolt Brecht was particularly indebted…
2011 words
Citation: Saur, Pamela S.. "Christian Dietrich Grabbe". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 May 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5447, accessed 23 November 2024.]
