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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
Of all of the cultural figures of fin de siècle Germany, the dramatist Frank Wedekind (1864–1918) is one of the hardest to comprehend. He does not fit easily into standard literary categories. His concern with sexuality causes some scholars to classify him with Jugendstil or Dekadenz; his grotesque caricatures, frenetic dialogue, and occasionally surreal imagery make others view him as a protoexpressionist; and his biting criticism of bourgeois society seems to make him both a wayward naturalist and a precursor of Sternheim, Brecht, and Dürrenmatt. Wedekind's resistance to tagging suggests that studies conducted solely in terms of the literary currents of his time will not uncover the essence of the man or his work. A more productive method seems to consist in examining the clash of the ideal and the real in Wedekind's life, the way in which his views on art and the artist were confounded by the economic reality of literary production. It was the shattering of the classical idealist conception of the artist by a total commercialization of the arts that gave birth to Wedekind's dramas.
1 Rothe, Friedrich, Frank Wedekinds Dramen: Jugendstil und Lebensphilosophie (Stuttgart, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that Wedekind was primarily allied to the movements mentioned in his title. Wedekind was branded as “decadent” by both conservatives and Social Democrats in his own day, but recently, Marxist critics tend to stress approvingly the socially critical aspects of his plays: cf. Lukács, Georg, Kurze Skizze einer Geschichte der neueren deutschen Literatur (Darmstadt, 1975), pp. 184–186Google Scholar, and Irmer, Hans-Jochen, Der Theaterdichter Frank Wedekind: Werk und Wirkung (Berlin, 1975).Google Scholar Marxists sympathetic to Wedekind see him as a forerunner of Sternheim, Brecht, and Dürrenmatt. For Wedekind's relations to both naturalism and expressionism, see Sokel, Walter, The Writer in Extremis: Expressionism in Twentieth-Century German Literature (Stanford, 1959), pp. 57–63.Google Scholar For expressionism alone, see Faesi, Robert, “Ein Vorläufer: Frank Wedekind,” in Friedmann, H. and Mann, Otto, eds., Expressionismus: Gestalten einer literarischen Bewegung (Heidelberg, 1956), pp. 241–63Google Scholar; and Irmer, pp. 269–74.
2 Sixth letter. For an excellent discussion of this work, see Wilkinson, Elizabeth M. and Willoughby, L. A., “The ‘Whole Man’ in Schiller's Theory of Culture and Society: On the Virtue of a Plurality of Models,” in Prawer, Siegberg S., ed., Essays in German Language, Culture and Society (London, 1969), pp. 177–210.Google Scholar
3 Schiller, sixth letter.
4 Ibid., second letter.
5 Ibid., ninth letter.
6 Ibid.
7 For the concept of “affirmative culture” in nineteenth-century Germany, see Marcuse, Herbert, “Über den affirmativen Charakter der Kultur” (1937), in Kultur und Gesellschaft, 1 (Frankfurt, 1973): 56–101.Google Scholar Two other essays that deal broadly with the reception of classicism and idealism by the German middle classes, including the shift after 1848, are: Speier, Hans, “Zur Soziologie der bürgerlichen Intelligenz in Deutschland” (1929)Google Scholar, reprinted in Gert, Mattenklott and Klaus, Scherpe, eds., Positionen der literarischen Intelligenz zwischen bürgerlicher Reaktion und Imperialismus (Kronburg, 1973), pp. 9–24Google Scholar; and Naumann, Michael, “Bildung und Gehorsam: Zur ästhetischen Ideologie des Bildungsbürgertums,” in Klaus, Vondung, ed., Das wilhelminische Bildungsbürgertum (Göttingen, 1975), pp. 34–52.Google Scholar For a detailed documentation of the changing political reception of Schiller, see Oellers, Norbert, Schiller—Zeitgenosse aller Epochen: Dokumente zur Wirkungsgeschichte Schillers in Deutschland, 2 vols. (Frankfurt, 1970, and Munich, 1976).Google Scholar
8 The impact of the rise of the literary market on German literature in the eighteenth century is discussed in Haferkorn, Hans Jürgen, “Der freie Schriftsteller: Eine literatur-soziologische Studie über seine Entstehung und Lage in Deutschland zwischen 1750 und 1800,” in Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel 19 (1963): 125–219Google Scholar; Winkler, Lutz, “Entstehung und Funktion des literarischen Marktes,” in Kulturwarenproduktion: Aufsätze zur Literatur- und Sprachsoziologie (Frankfurt, 1973), pp. 12–75Google Scholar; and Kiesel, H. and Münch, P., Gesellschaft und Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert: Voraussetzungen und Entstehung des literarischen Markts in Deutschland (Munich, 1977).Google Scholar
9 Martens, Wolfgang, Lyrik kommerziell: Das Kartell lyrischer Autoren 1902–1933 (Munich, 1975), pp. 15–18.Google Scholar
10 Anon., “Über die Massenerzeugung von Theaterstücken,” in Der Kunstwart 6 (1892–93): 309. The economic conditions of the German theater world in the late nineteenth century are described in Brauneck, Manfred, Literatur und Öffentlichkeit im ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert: Studien zur Rezeption des naturalistischen Theaters in Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 7–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11 Erich Schlaikjer, “Der Einfluss des Kapitalismus auf die moderne dramatische Kunst,” Die neue Zeit 12 (1893–94): 650.
12 Cited in Martens, p. 20.
13 Cited ibid., p. 19.
14 The lives of Wedekind's parents are described in Kutscher, Artur, Frank Wedekind: Sein Leben und seine Werke (Munich, 1922–1931), 1: 1–22.Google Scholar The basic biographical facts about Wedekind mentioned in this essay have been derived from this three-volume work, which is still the most complete biography of Wedekind.
15 Cf. Friedrich Wedekind's hymn to Schiller, cited ibid., 1: 6–7.
16 For the concept of “aesthetic paganism,” see Hatfield, Henry, Aesthetic Paganism in German Literature from Winckelmann to the Death of Goethe (Cambridge, Mass., 1964).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The literary preferences of the young Wedekind are described in Kutscher, op. cit., 1: 50–56.
17 Cited in Kutscher, op. cit., 1: 51. The portion in brackets was not cited by Wedekind, but it has been added to complete the meaning of Heine's passage. Heine's “paganism”—derived from both German classicism and Saint-Simonianism—is the subject of Sternberger, Dolf, Heinrich Heine und die Abschaffung der Sünde (Hamburg, 1972).Google Scholar
18 “Betrachtungen eines Spiessbürgers vor der neuen Kantonsschule in Aarau,” in Wedekind, , Werke, 3 (Berlin, 1969: hereafter WW): 271–76.Google Scholar
19 Cited in Kutscher, 1: 145.
20 Letter of Sept. 19, 1887, in Wedekind, , Gesammelte Briefe, 1 (Munich, 1924: hereafter WB): 175–77.Google Scholar
21 Hauptmann, Gerhart, Das Friedensfest, in Sämtliche Werke, 1 (Frankfurt, 1966): 159.Google Scholar Wedekind's relations with Hauptmann are discussed at length in Heuser, Frederick J., Gerhart Hauptmann: Zu seinem Leben und Schaffen (Tübingen, 1961), pp. 226–46.Google Scholar
22 Cited from the original version of Die junge Welt in Kutscher, 1: 222.
23 Kutscher, 1: 244. Further information suggesting that the conditions described in Frühlings Erwachen corresponded to realities of the day can be found in Fishman, Sterling, “Suicide, Sex, and the Discovery of the German Adolescent,” in History of Education Quarterly 10 (1970): 170–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an analysis of the play, see Peter Jelavich, “Wedekind's Spring Awakening: From Erotic Classicism to Epic Theater,” in Stephan Bronner and Douglas Kellner, eds., Passion and Rebellion: The Expressionist Heritage (forthcoming).
24 WW, 3: 161. Wedekind's ideas on the circus are discussed in Jones, Robert A., “Frank Wedekind: Circus Fan,” in Monatshefte für deutschen Unterricht, deutsche Sprache und Literatur 61 (1969): 139–56.Google Scholar It is interesting to note that Marcuse, in his essay on “affirmative culture,” also viewed the circus as an institution that proffered values upon which a new, humanly liberated culture could be built: cf. Marcuse, pp. 84–85.
25 WW, 3: 168.
26 WW, 1: 204–5.
27 Goethe, , “Tag- und Jahreshefte: 1801,” in Poetische Werke (Berlin, 1964), 16: 71.Google Scholar
28 Schiller, fifteenth letter.
29 For Wedekind's notion of “elasticity,” cf. WW, 3: 156.
30 See Frühlings Erwachen, WW, 1: 137.
31 “Pariser Tagebuch,” WW, 3: 281–331.
32 WW, 3: 340.
33 Goethe, Faust I, lines 460–517.
34 WW, 1: 246.
35 WW, 1: 244.
36 WW, 1: 246.
37 WW, 1: 267.
38 WW, 1: 249.
39 WW, 1: 293.
40 WW, 3: 221.
41 Cited in Kutscher, 1: 372.
42 WW, 1: 284.
43 WW, 1: 244.
44 WW, 3: 345.
45 WW, 1: 289–90.
46 Cf. the character Rodrigo Quast, WW, 1: 335–36.
47 Kutscher, 1: 258–59, 400–401. For a general discussion of censorship in the 1890s with special reference to the debate over “pornography” in the arts, see Lenman, Robin, “Art, Society and the Law in Wilhelmine Germany: The Lex Heinze,” Oxford German Studies 8 (1973-1974): 86–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
48 Letter of Aug. 14, 1898, in WB, 1: 307.
49 Letter of Jan. 17, 1897, in WB, 1: 274.
50 Letter of Dec. 23, 1897, in WB, 1: 293.
51 WW, 1: 412.
52 Ibid.
53 Hamann, Richard and Hermand, Jost, Impressionismus (Munich, 1972), p. 119.Google Scholar
54 See Lidtke, Vernon L., “Naturalism and Socialism in Germany,” American Historical Review 79 (1974): 14–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fülberth, Georg, Proletarische Partei und bürgerliche Literatur (Darmstadt, 1972), pp. 84–105Google Scholar; and Brauneck, pp. 99–116, 149–61.
55 Max Halbe, “Intimes Theater,” Pan 1 (1895): 107.
56 In an essay published in 1915, Wedekind contended: “I have never put my own convictions in the mouth of any character in any of my works…. My convictions are expressed only at the end of my plays in the balance sheets that result from the dramatic course of events and the fates of the protagonists.” WW, 3: 267. The fact that Wedekind expressed his own opinions indirectly in the structure of his plays and the course of his plots, though artistically ingenious, created difficulties for the reception of his plays, since audiences and reviewers tended to regard statements of certain protagonists (e.g., Dühring, Keith, Hetmann) as the author's own opinions.
57 Recollections of Kurt Martens, cited in Kutscher, 1: 396.
58 Reprinted in WW, 2: 605–6, along with Wedekind's other Simplicissimus poems (WW, 2: 545–623).
59 Cited in Thoma, Ludwig, “Frank Wedekind,” in Gesammelte Werke (Munich, 1956), 1: 261.Google Scholar Wedekind's extremely dubious contention in court that he was a loyal subject driven to Majestätsbeleidigung by Langen was parodied in Thoma, hilarious dramatic sketch, “Der Satanist,” in Simplicissimus 13 (1908–1909), no. 30.Google Scholar
60 Letter of Nov. 14, 1898, in WB, 1: 320.
61 Ibid., p. 319.
62 Halbe, Max, Jahrhundertwende: Geschichte meines Lebens 1893–1914 (Danzig, 1935), p. 309.Google Scholar
63 Letter of Dec. 15, 1898, in WB, 1: 324.
64 For Langen's relations with Grétor, see Koch, Ernestine, Albert Langen: Ein Verleger in München (Munich, 1969), pp. 21–24, 31.Google Scholar
65 WW, 1: 463. The “Feenpalast” is a parodistic portrayal of the Deutsches Theater, which many Munich writers came to regard as a symbol of the commercialization of culture. Opened in Munich in 1896, the Deutsches Theater was conceived by local businessmen as a profit-making temple of the arts, which included not only a theater, but also several ballrooms, billiard halls, and restaurants. Initially, naturalist plays were presented in the theater, but lack of public interest in such works induced the entrepreneurs to turn the stage over to vaudeville shows by 1898. The history of the Deutsches Theater is recounted in detail in Hartl, Rainer, Aufbruch zur Moderne: Naturalistisches Theater in München (Munich, 1976), pp. 406–534.Google Scholar
66 WW, 1: 300.
67 WW, 1: 436.
68 WW, 3: 348.
69 WW, 1: 517.
70 Letter of Dec. 26, 1899, in WB, 2: 32.
71 This aspect of the play is analyzed at length in Maclean, Hector, “Wedekind's Der Marquis von Keith: An Interpretation Based on the Faust and Circus Motifs,” Germanic Review 43 (1963): 163–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
72 WW, 3: 161.
73 WW, 1: 482.
74 Seehaus, Günter, Frank Wedekind und das Theater (Munich, 1964), pp. 267–73.Google Scholar
75 WW, 3: 244.
76 Letters of Jan. 11 and Mar. 10, 1902, in WB, 2: 85, 88.
77 Letter of Sept. 19, 1901, in WB, 2: 82.
78 Bierbaum, Otto Julius, Deutsche Chansons (Brettl-Lieder) (Munich, 1900), pp. xv–xvi.Google Scholar
79 Ibid., p. x.
80 The crisis of liberalism in late nineteenth-century Bavaria is described in Albrecht, Dieter, “Liberale Parteien,” in Max, Spindler, ed., Handbuch der bayerischen Geschichte (Munich, 1975), 4: 293–98Google Scholar; and Möckl, Karl, Die Prinzregentenzeit: Gesellschaft und Politik während der Ära des Prinzregenten Luitpold in Bayern (Munich, 1972)Google Scholar, passim. The impact of this political shift upon Munich culture is discussed in Lenman, Robin, “Politics and Culture: The State and the Avant-Garde in Munich 1886–1914,” in Evans, Richard J., ed., Society and Politics in Wilhelmine Germany (London, 1978), pp. 90–111.Google Scholar
81 For secondary accounts of the Munich cabaret, see Jelavich, Peter, “ ‘Die Elf Scharfrichter’: The Political and Sociocultural Dimensions of Cabaret in Wilhelmine Germany,” in Gerald, Chapple and Hans, Schulte, eds., The Turn of the Century: German Literature and Art 1890–1914 (Bonn, 1979)Google Scholar; Greul, Heinz, Bretter, die die Zeit bedeuten: Die Kulturgeschichte des Kabaretts (Munich, 1971), 1: 122–34Google Scholar; and Huber, Gerdi, Das klassische Schwabing: München als Zentrum der intellektuellen Zeit- und Gesellschaftskritik an der Wende des 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1973), pp. 139–47.Google Scholar
82 “… den Hanswurst machen und mich in Schmutz wälzen.” Letter of Sept. 21, 1901, in WB, 2: 84.
83 WW, 3: 349.
84 Draft of letter to Alfred Kerr from 1908–9, in WB, 2: 213. However, for an intelligent argument that Nicolo is a much better work than Wedekind himself believed, see Maclean, Hector, “The King and the Fool in Wedekind's König Nicolo,” Seminar 5 (1969): 21–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
85 WW, 1: 663.
86 For a massive indictment of fin de siècle German culture in the light of later historical events, see Hamann, Richard and Hermand, Jost, Stilkunst um 1900 (Berlin, 1967).Google Scholar
87 The marketing of Jugendstil as well as its use in advertising are described in Selle, Gert, Jugendstil und Kunstindustrie: Zur Ökonomie und Ästhetik des Kunstgewerbes um 1900 (Ravensburg, 1974).Google Scholar
88 WW, 1: 607; cf. pp. 610, 636–37.
89 WW, 1: 614.
90 WW, 1: 637.
91 “… dass mir von jetzt an die Literatur den Rücken herunterrutschen kann.” Letter of July 28, 1904, in WB, 2: 127.
92 Kutscher, 2: 209.
93 Wedekind, Tilly, Lulu—Die Rolle meines Lebens (Munich, 1969), p. 52.Google Scholar
94 Ibid., pp. 82, 95.
95 Ibid., pp. 134, 163.
96 Cited in Seehaus, p. 30.