GRILLPARZER

grillparzer, franz (1791-1872), the greatest dramatic poet of austria, was born in vienna, on the 15th of january 1791. his father, severe, pedantic, a staunch upholder of the liberal traditions of the reign of joseph ii., was an advocate of some standing; his mother, a nervous, finely-strung woman, belonged to the well-known musical family of sonnleithner. after a desultory education, grillparzer entered in 1807 the university of vienna as a student of jurisprudence; but two years later his father died, leaving the family in straitened circumstances, and franz, the eldest son, was obliged to turn to private tutoring. in 1813 he received an appointment in the court library, but as this was unpaid, he accepted after some months a clerkship that offered more solid prospects, in the lower austrian revenue administration. through the influence of graf stadion, the minister of finance, he was in 1818 appointed poet to the hofburgtheater, and promoted to the _hofkammer_ (exchequer); in 1832 he became director of the archives of that department, and in 1856 retired from the civil service with the title of _hofrat_. grillparzer had little capacity for an official career and regarded his office merely as a means of independence. in 1817 the first representation of his tragedy _die ahnfrau_ made him famous, but before this he had written a long tragedy in iambics, _bianca von castilien_ (1807-1809), which was obviously modelled on schiller's _don carlos_; and even more promising were the dramatic fragments _spartacus_ and _alfred der grosse_ (1809). _die ahnfrau_ is a gruesome "fate-tragedy" in the trochaic measure of the spanish drama, already made popular by adolf mullner in his _schuld_; but grillparzer's work is a play of real poetic beauties, and reveals an instinct for dramatic as opposed to merely theatrical effect, which distinguishes it from other "fate-dramas" of the day. unfortunately its success led to the poet's being classed for the best part of his life with playwrights like mullner and houwald. _die ahnfrau_ was followed by _sappho_ (1818), a drama of a very different type; in the classic spirit of goethe's _tasso_, grillparzer unrolled the tragedy of poetic genius, the renunciation of earthly happiness imposed upon the poet by his higher mission. in 1821 appeared _das goldene vliess_, a trilogy which had been interrupted in 1819 by the death of the poet's mother--in a fit of depression she had taken her own life--and a subsequent visit to italy. opening with a powerful dramatic prelude in one act, _der gastfreund_, grillparzer depicts in _die argonauten_ jason's adventures in his quest for the fleece; while _medea_, a tragedy of noble classic proportions, contains the culminating events of the story which had been so often dramatized before. the theme is similar to that of _sappho_, but the scale on which it is represented is larger; it is again the tragedy of the heart's desire, the conflict of the simple happy life with that sinister power--be it genius, or ambition--which upsets the equilibrium of life. the end is bitter disillusionment, the only consolation renunciation. medea, her revenge stilled, her children dead, bears the fatal fleece back to delphi, while jason is left to realize the nothingness of human striving and earthly happiness. for his historical tragedy _konig ottokars gluck und ende_ (1823, but owing to difficulties with the censor, not performed until 1825), grillparzer chose one of the most picturesque events in austrian domestic history, the conflict of ottokar of bohemia with rudolph von habsburg. with an almost modern realism he reproduced the motley world of the old chronicler, at the same time not losing sight of the needs of the theatre; the fall of ottokar is but another text from which the poet preached the futility of endeavour and the vanity of worldly greatness. a second historical tragedy, _ein treuer diener seines herrn_ (1826, performed 1828), attempts to embody a more heroic gospel; but the subject--the superhuman self-effacement of bankbanus before duke otto of meran--proved too uncompromising an illustration of kant's categorical imperative of duty to be palatable in the theatre. with these historical tragedies began the darkest ten years in the poet's life. they brought him into conflict with the austrian censor--a conflict which grated on grillparzer's sensitive soul, and was aggravated by his own position as a servant of the state; in 1826 he paid a visit to goethe in weimar, and was able to compare the enlightened conditions which prevailed in the little saxon duchy with the intellectual thraldom of vienna. to these troubles were added more serious personal worries. in the winter of 1820-1821 he had met for the first time katharina frohlich (1801-1879), and the acquaintance rapidly ripened into love on both sides; but whether owing to a presentiment of mutual incompatibility, or merely owing to grillparzer's conviction that life had no happiness in store for him, he shrank from marriage. whatever the cause may have been, the poet was plunged into an abyss of misery and despair to which his diary bears heart-rending witness; his sufferings found poetic expression in the fine cycle of poems bearing the significant title _tristia ex ponto_ (1835). yet to these years we owe the completion of two of grillparzer's greatest dramas, _des meeres und der liebe wellen_ (1831) and _der traum, ein leben_ (1834). in the former tragedy, a dramatization of the story of hero and leander, he returned to the hellenic world of _sappho_, and produced what is perhaps the finest of all german love-tragedies. his mastery of dramatic technique is here combined with a ripeness of poetic expression and with an insight into motive which suggests the modern psychological drama of hebbel and ibsen; the old greek love-story of musaeus is, moreover, endowed with something of that ineffable poetic grace which the poet had borrowed from the great spanish poets, lope de vega and calderon. _der traum, ein leben_, grillparzer's technical masterpiece, is in form perhaps even more spanish; it is also more of what goethe called a "confession." the aspirations of rustan, an ambitious young peasant, are shadowed forth in the hero's dream, which takes up nearly three acts of the play; ultimately rustan awakens from his nightmare to realize the truth of grillparzer's own pessimistic doctrine that all earthly ambitions and aspirations are vanity; the only true happiness is contentment with one's lot, "des innern stiller frieden und die schuldbefreite brust." _der traum, ein leben_ was the first of grillparzer's dramas which did not end tragically, and in 1838 he produced his only comedy, _weh' dem, der lugt_. but _weh' dem, der lugt_, in spite of its humour of situation, its sparkling dialogue and the originality of its idea--namely, that the hero gains his end by invariably telling the truth, where his enemies as invariably expect him to be lying--was too strange to meet with approval in its day. its failure was a blow to the poet, who turned his back for ever on the german theatre. in 1836 grillparzer paid a visit to paris and london, in 1843 to athens and constantinople. then came the revolution which struck off the intellectual fetters under which grillparzer and his contemporaries had groaned in austria, but the liberation came too late for him. honours were heaped upon him; he was made a member of the academy of sciences; heinrich laube, as director of the burgtheater, reinstated his plays on the repertory; he was in 1861 elected to the austrian _herrenhaus_; his eightieth birthday was a national festival, and when he died in vienna, on the 21st of january 1872, the mourning of the austrian people was universal. with the exception of a beautiful fragment, _esther_ (1861), grillparzer published no more dramatic poetry after the fiasco of _weh' dem, der lugt_, but at his death three completed tragedies were found among his papers. of these, _die judin von toledo_, an admirable adaptation from the spanish, has won a permanent place in the german classical repertory; _ein bruderzwist im hause habsburg_ is a powerful historical tragedy and _libussa_ is perhaps the ripest, as it is certainly the deepest, of all grillparzer's dramas; the latter two plays prove how much was lost by the poet's divorce from the theatre. although grillparzer was essentially a dramatist, his lyric poetry is in the intensity of its personal note hardly inferior to lenau's; and the bitterness of his later years found vent in biting and stinging epigrams that spared few of his greater contemporaries. as a prose writer, he has left one powerful short story, _der arme spielmann_ (1848), and a volume of critical studies on the spanish drama, which shows how completely he had succeeded in identifying himself with the spanish point of view. grillparzer's brooding, unbalanced temperament, his lack of will-power, his pessimistic renunciation and the bitterness which his self-imposed martyrdom produced in him, made him peculiarly adapted to express the mood of austria in the epoch of intellectual thraldom that lay between the napoleonic wars and the revolution of 1848; his poetry reflects exactly the spirit of his people under the metternich regime, and there is a deep truth behind the description of _der traum, ein leben_ as the austrian _faust_. his fame was in accordance with the general tenor of his life; even in austria a true understanding for his genius was late in coming, and not until the centenary of 1891 did the german-speaking world realize that it possessed in him a dramatic poet of the first rank; in other words, that grillparzer was no mere "epigone" of the classic period, but a poet who, by a rare assimilation of the strength of the greeks, the imaginative depth of german classicism and the delicacy and grace of the spaniards, had opened up new paths for the higher dramatic poetry of europe. grillparzer's _samtliche werke_ are edited by a. sauer, in 20 vols., 5th edition (stuttgart, 1892-1894); also, since the expiry of the copyright in 1901, innumerable cheap reprints. _briefe und tagebucher_, edited by c. glossy and a. sauer (2 vols., stuttgart, 1903). _jahrbuch der grillparzer-gesellschaft_, edited by k. glossy (the publication of the grillparzer society) (vienna, 1891 ff.). see also h. laube, _franz grillparzers lebensgeschichte_ (stuttgart, 1884); j. volkelt, _franz grillparzer als dichter des tragischen_ (nordlingen, 1888); e. reich, _franz grillparzers dramen_ (dresden, 1894); a. ehrhard, _franz grillparzer_ (paris, 1900) (german translation by m. necker, munich, 1902); h. sittenberger, _grillparzer, sein leben und wirken_ (berlin, 1904); gustav pollak, _f. grillparzer and the austrian drama_ (new york, 1907). of grillparzer's works, translations have appeared in english of _sappho_ (1820, by j. bramsen; 1846, by e. b. lee; 1855, by l. c. cumming; 1876, by e. frothingham); and of _medea_ (1879, by f. w. thurstan and j. a. wittmann). byron's warm admiration of _sappho_ (_letters and journals_, v. 171) is well known, while carlyle's criticism, in his essay on _german playwrights_ (1829), is interesting as expressing the generally accepted estimate of grillparzer in the first half of the 19th century. see the bibliography in k. goedeke's _grundriss zur geschichte der deutschen dichtung_, 2nd ed., vol. viii. (1905). (j. g. r.) grimald (or grimoald), nicholas (1519-1562), english poet, was born in huntingdonshire, the son probably of giovanni baptista grimaldi, who had been a clerk in the service of empson and dudley in the reign of henry vii. he was educated at christ's college, cambridge, where he took his b.a. degree in 1540. he then removed to oxford, becoming a probationer-fellow of merton college in 1541. in 1547 he was lecturing on rhetoric at christ church, and shortly afterwards became chaplain to bishop ridley, who, when he was in prison, desired grimald to translate laurentius valla's book against the alleged _donation of constantine_, and the _de gestis basiliensis concilii_ of aeneas sylvius (pius ii.). his connexion with ridley brought him under suspicion, and he was imprisoned in the marshalsea. it is said that he escaped the penalties of heresy by recanting his errors, and was despised accordingly by his protestant contemporaries. grimald contributed to the original edition (june 1557) of _songes and sonettes_ (commonly known as _tottel's miscellany_), forty poems, only ten of which are retained in the second edition published in the next month. he translated (1553) cicero's _de officiis as marcus tullius ciceroes thre bokes of duties_ (2nd ed., 1556); a latin paraphrase of virgil's _georgics_ (printed 1591) is attributed to him, but most of the works assigned to him by bale are lost. two latin tragedies are extant; _archipropheta sive johannes baptista_, printed at cologne in 1548, probably performed at oxford the year before, and _christus redivivus_ (cologne, 1543), edited by prof. j. m. hart (for the modern language association of america, 1886, separately issued 1899). it cannot be determined whether grimald was familiar with buchanan's _baptistes_ (1543), or with j. schoeppe's _johannes decollatus vel ectrachelistes_ (1546). grimald provides a purely romantic motive for the catastrophe in the passionate attachment of herodias to herod, and constantly resorts to lyrical methods. as a poet grimald is memorable as the earliest follower of surrey in the production of blank verse. he writes sometimes simply enough, as in the lines on his own childhood addressed to his mother, but in general his style is more artificial, and his metaphors more studied than is the case with the other contributors to the _miscellany_. his classical reading shows itself in the comparative terseness and smartness of his verses. his epitaph was written by barnabe googe in may 1562. see c. h. herford, _studies in the literary relations of england and germany_ (pp. 113-119, 1886). _a catalogue of printed books ... by writers bearing the name of grimaldi_ (ed. a. b. grimaldi), printed 1883; and arber's reprint oi _tottel's miscellany_.