Georg Büchner

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Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 – 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose, considered part of the Young Germany movement. He was also a revolutionary and the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. His literary achievements, though few in number, are generally held in great esteem in Germany and it is widely believed that, had it not been for his early death, he might have joined such central German literary figures as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller at the summit of their profession.[citation needed]

Life and career

Born in Goddelau (now part of Riedstadt) in the Grand Duchy of Hesse as the son of a physician, Büchner attended the Darmstadt gymnasium, a humanistic secondary school.[1]

In 1828, he became interested in politics and joined a circle of William Shakespeare aficionados, which later on probably became the Giessen and Darmstadt section of the Society for Human Rights (Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte).

In 1831, at age 18, he began to study medicine in

Claude Henri de Saint-Simon. In 1833 he moved to Giessen and continued his studies at the local university
.

Büchner in a 1833/34 drawing by his friend Alexis Muston

While Büchner continued his studies in Giessen, he established a secret society dedicated to the revolutionary cause. In July 1834, with the help of evangelical theologian

University of Zürich as a lecturer in anatomy, Büchner relocated to Zürich where he spent his final months writing and teaching until his death from typhus
at the age of twenty-three.

Gravestone of Georg Büchner on Germaniahügel in Zürich-Oberstrass

His first play, Dantons Tod (Danton's Death), about the French Revolution, was published in 1835, followed by Lenz (first partly published in Karl Gutzkow's and Wienberg's Deutsche Revue, which was quickly banned). Lenz is a novella based on the life of the Sturm und Drang poet Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. In 1836 his second play, Leonce and Lena, satirized the nobility. His unfinished and most famous play, Woyzeck, exists only in fragments and was published posthumously.

Legacy

By the 1870s, Büchner was nearly forgotten in Germany when

expressionist movements. Arnold Zweig
described Lenz, Büchner's only work of prose fiction, as "the beginning of modern European prose".

The play Woyzeck became the basis for many adaptations including Alban Berg's landmark atonal opera Wozzeck which premiered in 1925, and Werner Herzog's 1979 film Woyzeck (see main article, Woyzeck, for a full list).

A literary prize in Germany, the Georg Büchner Prize, is awarded annually. It was created in 1923.

Works

Editions

  • Georg Büchner, Werke und Briefe. Münchner Ausgabe (dtv, 1997).
    ISBN 3-423-12374-5
    .
  • Georg Büchner, Dichtungen, Schriften, Briefe und Dokumente (Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 2006). ISBN 978-3-618-68013-0. The most complete, authoritative edition.

Translations

Notes

  1. ^ "Büchner, Georg." Garland, Henry and Mary (Eds.). The Oxford Companion to German Literature. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. p. 121.

References

  • Garland, Henry and Mary (Eds.). The Oxford Companion to German Literature. 2nd ed. by Mary Garland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. "Büchner, Georg", p. 121.
  • Heiner Boehncke, Peter Brunner, Hans Sarkowicz. Die Büchners oder der Wunsch, die Welt zu verändern. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2008.

External links

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