Franz Grillparzer

Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872), Austrian playwright, whose sombre tragedies and historical dramas are considered masterpieces of the 19th-century Austrian theatre. Born in Vienna, the son of a lawyer, he too studied law at the University of Vienna but began a career in the civil service in 1814 which lasted until his resignation in 1856.

Grillparzer wrote many tragedies of dramatic and poetic beauty, particularly notable for their psychological insight. The first to awaken public interest was Die Ahnfrau (The Ancestress, 1817), followed by Sappho (1818), dealing with the impossibility of reconciling art and life. The trilogy Das goldene Vlies (The Golden Fleece, 1822), written at the time of his mother's suicide, told the ancient Greek tale of Jason and Medea. This starkly pessimistic work reflects the writer's own Schopenhaurian concern that the conflict between a life of action and one of meditation seems to lead inevitably to renunication and despair. His masterpiece is generally considered to be Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen (The Waves of Sea and Love, 1831), again following a classical theme in the story of the Greek lovers Hero and Leander. Der Traum ein Leben(1834) and Die Jüdin von Toledo (1872 The Jewess from Toledo, 1953) are based on classical Spanish themes. Although many of Grillparzer's works were disliked by the censors and the public, they influenced later dramatists, such as the German Gerhart Hauptmann and the Belgian Maurice Maeterlinck.