Christian Dietrich Grabbe

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christian Dietrich Grabbe, lithograph by W. Severin after a drawing by Joseph Wilhelm Pero

Christian Dietrich Grabbe (born December 11, 1801 in Detmold ; † September 12, 1836 there ) was a German playwright from Vormärz .

Life

Christian Dietrich Grabbe, copper engraving by Franz Xaver Stöber after Hildebrandt

Grabbe was born the son of a prison overseer. As a high school student in Detmold, he made his first attempts as a playwright at the age of 16. A scholarship from the duchess enabled him to study law in Leipzig from 1820 , which he continued in Berlin in 1822 . In Berlin he met Heinrich Heine . After completing his studies in 1823, he tried in vain to get a job at a German theater as an actor or director. He returned to Detmold, and laid the following year his Legal State Examination from.

Attempts to find a position as a lawyer in Detmold were initially unsuccessful, and it was not until 1826 that he took over the unpaid representation of a sick auditor , whose paid successor he was in 1828. In 1829, Don Juan and Faust, the only performance of one of his dramas during his lifetime, took place in Detmold . From 1831 Grabbe's health deteriorated noticeably, the consequences of his alcoholism became visible (an episode characteristic of Grabbe's alcohol consumption from the autumn of 1828 is described by Georg Fein ). An engagement with Henriette Meyer was broken when Grabbe turned back to Louise Christiane Clostermeier, who had already turned him down once.

In 1833 he married Louise Christiane Clostermeier, who was 10 years his senior, but the marriage quickly turned out to be unhappy. In 1834 he gave up his office. He traveled to Düsseldorf via Frankfurt am Main , where he fell out with his publisher . There he had his house at Bolkerstraße 6. Today's post-war building at Ritterstraße 21 shows a stone plaque that indicates his stay at the time: “In this house, the poet Chr. Dietr Litt und Stritt. Grabbe 1834 to 1836 ”. There he worked with Karl Immermann , whom he had met in 1831, on the city ​​theater that had been renovated by the latter . But this collaboration did not last long either because of Grabbe's depression and excessive alcohol. In 1836 he returned to Detmold again; his wife filed for divorce. That same year died Grabbe in his hometown of spinal tuberculosis .

plant

Along with Georg Büchner, Grabbe was the most important innovator of German-language drama of his time. He was influenced by Shakespeare and the " Sturm und Drang ". In his ambitious dramas, which overtaxed the theater and stage technology of the time with their mass scenes and rapid scene changes, he dissolved the strict form of the classical drama into a series of loosely connected scenes and became a pioneer of realism on stage. In his pieces he designed a worldview that ranges from disillusioning to pessimistic , sometimes with shrill scenes.

Initially forgotten after his death, Grabbe's work was only partially rediscovered by the playwrights of Naturalism and Expressionism . He found admiration as a national poet under National Socialism , whereby the anti-Semitic statements he has handed down , isolated anti-Semitic passages in his plays (especially Cinderella ) and the national tendency of his subjects (especially The Hermann Battle ) became ideological points of contact. In the 1930s in particular, several streets were named after Grabbe.

Modern reception

Birthplace in Bruchstrasse, Detmold
Last residence in Grabbes, Detmold
Honored by street names with an explanatory "legend sign"

While Duke Theodor von Gothland is considered to be one of the most impressive debut works by a German poet and shocked even then with his pervasive nihilism , today Napoleon or Die Hundred Tage and Hannibal are particularly valued as important dramas of the Vormärz, as they convey a realistic, heterogeneous view of history. Jokes, satire, irony and deeper meaning are still often played today as one of the most effective German comedies.

Due to Grabbe's deliberate disregard for basic dramaturgical and stage technical rules, staging his plays is still difficult today. Above all, the Napoleon drama presents every stage with great challenges due to its high number of characters, changing locations and cinematic battle scenes. The Theater Neue Bühne Senftenberg performed in autumn 2009 during the 6th GlückAufFest GRAB (B) E! many of his plays performed again in several theater nights. The evening opened with Sewan Latchinian's piece of Grabbe's grave . Then the Hermannsschlacht , Hannibal and Napoleon or The Hundred Days were played in parallel in different venues of the theater (studio, side magazine, circus tent) . The evening ended with jokes, satire, irony and deeper meaning .

The city of Detmold has been awarding the Christian Dietrich Grabbe Prize for new dramatic literature at irregular intervals since 1994, together with the Grabbe Society and the Lippe Regional Association .

Works

literature

  • Karl Ziegler: Grabbe's life and character . Facsimile print of the first edition from 1855. Ed. And with an afterword by Detlev Kopp u. Michael Vogt. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2009. ISBN 978-3-89528-722-0 .
  • Arthur Koetz : The grave problem in its contemporary history
  • Alfred Bergmann : The credibility of the evidence for the life and character of Christian Dietrich Grabbe. A source-critical investigation . Publishing house Dr. Emil Ebering, Berlin 1933.
  • Alfred Bergmann (ed.): Grabbe in reports of his contemporaries . Metzler, Stuttgart 1968.
  • Manfred Schneider: Destruction and utopian community. On the theme and dramaturgy of the heroic in Christian Dietrich Grabbe's work , Athenaeum, Frankfurt / M. 1973.
  • Maria Porrmann: Grabbe - poet for the fatherland. The historical dramas on German stages in the 19th and 20th centuries , Vol. 10, Landesverband Lippe, Lemgo 1982. ISBN 3-921428-45-9 .
  • Detlev Kopp: History and Society in the Dramas Christian Dietrich Grabbes . Peter Lang, Frankfurt / M. 1982.
  • Werner Broer / Detlev Kopp (ed.): Grabbe in the Third Reich . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 1986. ISBN 3-925670-00-9
  • Lothar Ehrlich:
    • Christian Dietrich Grabbe. Reception and effect . Habilitation, 1980.
    • Christian Dietrich Grabbe. Life and work . Reclam, Leipzig 1986.
  • Winfried Freund (Hrsg.): Grabbe's alternative designs. New interpretations of his dramas. Wilhelm Fink, Munich 1986. ISBN 3-7705-2341-5
  • Werner Broer / Detlev Kopp (eds.): Christian Dietrich Grabbe (1801–1836). Contributions to the 1986 symposium of the Grabbe Society . Niemeyer, Tübingen 1987. ISBN 3-484-10552-6
  • Detlev Kopp / Michael Vogt (eds.): Grabbe and the dramatists of his time. Contributions to the II. International Grabbe Symposium 1989. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1990. ISBN 3-484-10657-3
  • Olaf Kutzmutz: Grabbe. Classic ex negativo . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 1995. ISBN 3-89528-141-7 .
  • Roy C. Cowen: Christian Dietrich Grabbe - playwright of unsolved contradictions . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2001. ISBN 3-89528-163-8 . (Readable introduction with references)
  • Ladislaus Löb : Christian Dietrich Grabbe . Metzler-Verlag, Stuttgart 1996. ISBN 3-476-10294-7 .
  • Detlev Kopp (Ed.): Christian Dietrich Grabbe - A modern playwright. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 1996. ISBN 3-89528-118-2
  • Carl Wiemer: The pariah as a monster. Grabbe - genealogist of anti-humanitarianism . Aisthesis Essay 8, Bielefeld 1997. ISBN 3-89528-162-X .
  • Detlev Kopp / Michael Vogt (eds.): Grabbe's world theater. Christian Dietrich Grabbe for his 200th birthday . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2001. ISBN 3-89528-300-2
  • Jörg Aufenanger: The laugh of despair. Grabbe. One life . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2001. ISBN 3-10-000120-6 .
  • Christian Dietrich Grabbe: The Cid. Great opera in 2–5 acts. Text - Materials - Analysis (with DVD of the world premiere ). Ed. by Detlev Kopp in conjunction with Kurt Jauslin a. Maria Porrmann. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2009.
  • Rüdiger Frommholz:  Christian Dietrich Grabbe. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , pp. 694-696 ( digitized version ).
  • Alfred Stern:  Christian Dietrich Grabbe . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 532-536.
  • Albert Meier: “See the negro.” Christian Dietrich Grabbe's Duke Theodor von Gothland as a romanticizing Schiller pastiche. In: Grabbe-Jahrbuch 2018 (37th volume), pp. 31–40.

Audio books

  • "... and nothing but despair can save us" An audio book about Christian Dietrich Grabbe (1801–1836) by Detlef Grumbach (NDR 3, Kulturelles Wort). Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2001.
  • You could call him a drunken Shakespeare. Grabbe - a tragedy in letters. Read by Walter Sittler. Bielefeld 2002 [Edition Nyland by Pendragon Verlag] ISBN 3-934872-32-8 (audio CD, 65:11 min.)
  • Christian Dietrich Grabbe: Joke, satire, irony and deeper meaning. Read by Wiglaf Droste and Harry Rowohlt. Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-86604-333-6 (Random House Audio - 2 CDs, 83 min.)

Film adaptations

Bust in the Düsseldorf Hofgarten on Grabbeplatz
  • Grabbes last summer , screenplay: Thomas Valentin , based on the novel of the same name by the same author; Director: Sohrab Shahid Saless , production: Radio Bremen, first broadcast: ARD, December 7, 1980. Posthumously the author Thomas Valentin, who died 15 days after the broadcast, was awarded the Adolf Grimme Prize with gold for the screenplay in 1981 (together with Sohrab Shahid Saless and Wilfried Grimpe ). The television film sensitively depicts the last months of the poet's life in Detmold, but was shot in Verl .
  • Die Hermannsschlacht , script, direction and production: Christian Deckert , Hartmut Kiesel, Christoph Köster, Stefan Mischer and Cornelius Völker , distribution: Schloßfilm Hamburg , first performance 1995, 2005 new edition on DVD by Stefan Mischer with the support of the former president of the Grabbe Society Werner Broer. The film describes the famous battle in the Teutoburg Forest, which historians today often treat under the name " Varus Battle ". The film takes place in antiquity, in the 19th century and in the present. Christian Dietrich Grabbe appears here in several scenes, first while writing the drama in his pub, then on the Velmerstot in the Eggegebirge, where, contrary to historical facts, he meets his colleague Heinrich von Kleist . Finally, the audience sees him in the fray, where, slightly drunk, he is also debating the idea of ​​the hero and the tasks of the poet with Heinrich von Kleist.

Opera and play about Grabbe

  • Grabbe's life , chamber opera in three acts by Walter Steffens , libretto by Peter Schütze , commissioned by the Detmold Landestheater on the 150th anniversary of Grabbe's death, partial concert performance at the Hamburg State Opera on May 15, 1986, world premiere on September 12, 1986 at the Detmold Landestheater.
  • Grabbes grave of Sewan Latchinian ; Written in 1984, published in Temperamente Blätter für Junge Literatur 2/1985, Verlag Neues Leben Berlin, Lic.Nr .: 303/305/2/85, world premiere in 1986 at the Mecklenburg State Theater in Schwerin

Web links

Commons : Christian Dietrich Grabbe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Christian Dietrich Grabbe  - Sources and full texts
Wikiquote: Christian Dietrich Grabbe  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Ernst Fleischhack: Georg Fein bei Grabbe in Dortmund. A still unknown encounter in the autumn of 1828 . In: Detlev Kopp (Ed.): Christian Dietrich Grabbe - A modern playwright . Bielefeld 1996. pp. 129-136 with further references.
  2. ^ A. Hofacker: New illustrated guide through Düsseldorf and the surrounding area for locals and foreigners (1895), page 38
  3. ↑ John von Düffel: From the war of the suffering with the laughing poet. In: Die Welt, May 10, 2003, accessed on September 12, 2011.
  4. ↑ Werner Broer / Detlev Kopp (ed.): Grabbe in the Third Reich. Bielefeld 1986
  5. ↑ Grabbe! - The 6th GlückAufFest with pieces by and about Grabbe , accessed on May 15, 2013
  6. ↑ Lippische Landesbibliothek Detmold: Grabbe-Bibliographie 2002 with supplements , accessed on May 15, 2013
  7. ^ Inaugural dissertation of February 28, 1923, printed as an extract with the permission of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Greifswald; Complete doctoral thesis available in the Berlin State Library - both as microfiches
  8. ↑ Article about L. Ehrlich ( Memento from January 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Grabbe, Christian Dietrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German playwright
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH Detmold
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1836
Place of death Detmold