Grillparzer, Franz

(1791-1872)

   Playwright. Grillparzer was perhaps the most accomplished playwright of 19th-century Austria; scholars sometimes compare his work to Heinrich von Kleist's as an example of late Romanticism, because his characters (like Kleist's) often suffer passions of unbridled dimensions in plays that cover vast expanses of time and territory. Grillparzer was a graduate of the University of Vienna's law school and served in the Habsburg bureaucracy for decades; in 1856 he received the honorary title of Hofrat (court counsel) for his services. As a playwright, however, he sometimes ran afoul of the Habsburg establishment, and he never received the literary honors many thought his due. Joseph Schreyvogel was the first director to encourage Grillparzer; his Die Ahnfrau (The Ancestress) premiered at the Theater an der Wien in 1817 and was generally successful. Schreyvogel's 1819 premiere of Grillparzer's five-act verse tragedy Sappho at the Burgtheater, however, was sensationally popular. It earned Grillparzer both money and renown, and the Burg named him one of its Theaterdichter (theater poets) thereafter.

   Grillparzer is one of the few German-language playwrights to have been strongly influenced by plays of the Siglo de Oro, the "golden age" of Spanish drama in the 17th century. His Der Traum ein Leben (Life Is a Dream) is perhaps the best example, since it derives in many respects from the Calderon de la Barca original. Grillparzer's Weh dem, der lügt (Woe Betide the Liar) is likewise thought to have antecedents in the work of Lope de Vega; Grillparzer set the play in medieval France, and unfortunately audiences hated it. His Die Jüdin von Toledo (The Jewess of Toledo, 1851), based directly on Lope's The Peace of Kings and the Jews of Toledo (1617), was more successful when it premiered after Grillparzer's death.

   Grillparzer was most successful in plays that dealt with Habsburg history; his first play chronicling the Habsburg dynasty was König Ottokars Glück und Ende (King Ottokar's Rise and Fall, 1825), featuring the first Habsburg king, Rudolf I, and his successful overthrow of the Bohemian king Ottokar. Czech patriots naturally resented the portrayal of Ottokar as a morose cuckold, and the play was at first banned; only when Empress Augusta Caroline intervened on his behalf was the production allowed to proceed. That was not the last encounter with censors for Grillparzer, though. Many critics have argued that Grillparzer's frequent conflicts with censors led him to a despondency that negatively affected his work. That may be true to some extent, but Heinrich Laube's numerous productions of Grillparzer's plays in the 1850s occasioned a revival of estimation for Grillparzer; that led to what is arguably his best play, Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg (Fraternal Guile within the House of Habsburg), which premiered posthumously. Even before the 1850s, however, there was general recognition of Grillparzer's achievements. Habsburg chancellor Klemens von Metternich himself named Grillparzer to the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1847; he was awarded several honorary doctorates in the 1850s, and in 1861 Grillparzer was appointed to the newly established Upper House of the Austrian parliament. When he died, thousands lined the streets as his funeral cortege passed by; an estimated 20,000 mourners accompanied it to the Hietzinger Cemetery in Vienna.