History of Western Theatre: 17th Century to Now/German Romantic
Major figures in German Romantic theatre are Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), whose two main dramas in the 19th century are "Faust" parts 1 (1808) and 2 (1832). Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) continued strong dramatic works from the previous century with "Wilhelm Tell" (William Tell, 1804). Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) wrote a fine small-town comedy in "Der zerbrochne Krug" (The broken jug, 1808). The art of Georg Büchner (1813-1837) resembles more 19th century German Realist and even 20th century drama, though with themes in common with France's Alfred de Musset, namely the despairing poetic musings of the main character, with the important though incomplete "Woyzeck" (1837).
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"Faust, part 1" [edit]
"Faust, part 1". Time: 1800s. Place: Germany.
"Faust, part 1" text at http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/FaustIProl.htm
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Faust_(von_Goethe)
http://www.readbookonline.net/title/3243/
In his study, Faust, though having mastered many facets of learning, including jurisprudence and medicine, is dissatisfied with them all. He is visited by an Earth-spirit, but remains unable to achieve the superior knowledge he seeks. Faust thereby considers suicide. Raising a vial of poison to his lips, he is dissuaded by the sound of church bells at Easter, reminding him of childhood days. While walking in the streets with his assistant, Wagner, Faust notices a poodle following him around, it is the disguised Mephistopheles, who proposes to him a pact, by which the devil wins his soul should he desire a thing so beautiful that he would desire to have that moment linger. That great moment is not found in the drinking pleasures inside Auerbach's cellar, where Faust is disgusted by the sight of drunken revellers. However, Faust accepts to be transformed as a young man and, spying a simple milkmaid, Gretchen, in the street, is determined to seduce her. In a garden, Faust and Gretchen stroll about alone, while Mephistopheles does the same with her neighbor, Martha. Having previously learned from Mephistopheles her husband's death, Martha flirts with him, who has great difficulty in politely rejecting her advances. Gretchen confesses her love to Faust and is willing, one one hand, to permit him to enter her room, but, on the other hand, unwilling to be discovered by her pious mother, so that he gives Gretchen a bottle containing what he thinks is a sleeping potion but is in reality poisonous. Gretchen is soon discovered to be pregnant. Her enraged brother, Valentine, challenges the culprit to a duel. Helped by Mephistopheles, Faust kills Valentine. To distract Faust from Gretchen's abandoned state, Mephistopheles invites Faust to a witches' sabbath, where he is about to fall in the arms of a naked young witch when Gretchen's image suddenly appears to him. Before he can reach her, she has drowned her baby and been condemned to death. Although Mephistopheles promises to rescue her from her prison cell, Gretchen refuses to go with Faust, not recognizing the young man she once loved. In danger of being caught, the devil pushes Faust away with the words: "She is judged," but a voice from heaven adds: "She is saved."
"Faust, part 2" [edit]
"Faust, part 2". Time: 1800s. Place: Germany.
"Faust, part 2" text at http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/FaustIIActIScenesItoVII.htm
Faust and Mephisto arrive at an emperor's court where money is scarce. Thanks to Mephisto, Faust obtains favor by discovering piles of gold in the bowels of the earth. To distract him and to satisfy his intellectual curiosity, Mephisto presents Faust with a key, by which he learns about the Mothers, spiritual creatures mysteriously guiding the world's destinies. After having ensured their prosperity, Faust and Mephisto entertain the court with pageants from Greek mythology, with Helen of Troy and her lover, Paris. At Faust's house, now long abandoned, Wagner, his servant, seeks to recreate man anew inside his oven. A homonculus appears, who ignores Wagner and follows Mephisto instead. Faust seeks beyond mere pageantry, and, with Mephisto's agency, reaches the very land of classical myth itself, where Helen of Troy is in danger of being axed to death by her husband, Menelaus. Faust saves her in the shape of a medieval knight and secures her for himself in Arcadia, pastoral land of shepherds and lyric poetry, where they bear a son, Euphorio. Faust and Helen have difficulty in restraining the impetuous Euphorio, who seizes a young girl and is about to rape her as she is transformed into fire and disappears. They next see Euphorio prepare to engage in martial feats, but, to their grief, he soon falls to his death. Faust cannot hold Helen longer. As he embraces her, her bodily form disappears, only her robe remaining. When Faust and Mephisto return to court, there is an armed revolt afoot. In Mephisto's view, "war, commerce, and pirating are inseparate". Thanks to him, the emperor's troops succeed in crushing the opposition. Now, quite old, Faust becomes blind, though very well seeing his end in infernal regions. He nevertheless commands Mephisto to get for him a huge number of workers to create great achievements on earth, but falls to the earth, where lemurs seize him. Mephisto's neck begins to burn on seeing roses and angels cover the scene, with other spiritual creatures accompanying Gretchen in a state of beatitude.
"William Tell" [edit]
"William Tell". Time: 14th century. Place: Switzerland.
"William Tell" text at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6788 http://www.bartleby.com/26/6/
A ferryman, a hunter, and a shepherd are surprised to see Baumgarten running towards them. He has just killed a bailiff with an axe for entering his house and proposing disgraceful things to his wife. He asks the ferryman to help him cross the lake to escape from the authorities pursuing him for murder. The ferryman refuses because a storm is rising. Despite the tempest, William Tell saves Baumgarten in the ferryman's canoe. Frustrated to see Baumgarten escape, the governor's officers avenge themselves on the innocent bystanders by destroying their property. By order of the governor, a prison-fortress is being built in Uri and a hat placed atop the highest point in the village, below which everyone must kneel and lift his hat. The villagers laugh and consider this is a gross sign of Austrian tyranny. To punish a minor fault, a governor's officer removes Melchthal's two best oxen from his team. In anger the peasant breaks the officer's finger and escapes. In retribution, the governor seizes Melchthal's father and blinds him. The baron of Attinghausen accuses his nephew, Ulrich, for being on the side of oppression. Ulrich is of the opinion that they should submit to the emperor's authority. His armor rusts and he is tired of staying at home inactive, with only the sound of cowbells in his ears. The baron appeals to the ancient ways, the Swiss being traditionally free of any oppressor. Furthermore, he accuses him of hoping to claim Bertha, the governor's ward. "To conquer this woman, you would enslave your country," says he. At night, a group of thirty men, including Melchthal and Baumgarten, encourage and plot rebellion, wishing to oust offending governors from the three Swiss cantons. Here even men opposed to each other at the tribunal shake hands. Meanwhile, Bertha accuses Ulrich of being "Swiss' unnatural son." Ulrich declares he only wishes to win her, but how can he, she being dependent on her parents' will? "If Switzerland is free, so am I," discloses she. In the town, the guardians of the hat stop Tell in the name of the emperor for violating the ordinance. To make an example of him, governor Gessler declares: "Prepare to strike an apple on the top of your child's head." If he misses Walter from 80 steps away, he dies. Walter would not have his grandfather kneel pleading to the governor. He has confidence in his father, refusing to be tied to the tree and to be blindfolded. Tell asks the soldiers to kill him, but if he does not shoot, both he and his son die. Tell hides a second arrow, seen by Gessler. Though in the governor's train, Ulrich tries to interfere. While Ulrich and Gessler bandy angry words, Tell hits the apple. What would he have done with the second arrow? wonders Gessler. Tell admits he would have aimed it at him, so that the honest archer is arrested and led in chains to Küssnacht fortress. But on the way, he frees himself during a tempest. After baron of Attinghausen's death, Ulrich is the new baron and joins the revolted peasants, with all the more reason since Bertha has been kidnapped. On the way to the castle, a woman begs the governor for clemency, she and her children being without means since her husband's imprisonment while awaiting trial. Thanks to this delay, from behind a bush Tell strikes Gessler dead with an arrow. The happy mother shows her children how a villain dies. Fire signals in the mountains and tolling bells indicate that the peasants are invading and burning the fortresses, with Bertha saved by Ulrich and Melchthal before the fire reaches her. The hat will be maintained as a sign of liberty. There is even more momentous news: the emperor has been assassinated by his nephew, the duke of Austria. There is hope that the new emperor will protect the Swiss against Austria. Meanwhile, the duke of Austria, disguised as a monk, enters Tell's house. Tell, the assassin for the people's good, is horrified at seeing the assassin of his own good: "Do not sully the peaceful house where inhabits innocence." He recommends him to the pope, to pardon his crime or not. Ulrich and Bertha, married, declare that all the serfs are free.
"The broken jug" [edit]
"The broken jug". Time: 1800s. Place: Huisum, Holland.
"The broken jug" text at http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=9405298
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Judge Adam learns that a justice counsellor has arrived to investigate the doings of his court. It is a bad time, he having suffered two blows on the head and being scratched all over. He is nervous, and, whenever so, subject to defecating. Consellor Walter notes Adam's behavior in a case about a jug. Martha accuses Ruprecht, her daughter's intended, of breaking it, which he denies, accusing in turn a strange man found in Eve's bedroom late at night, whom he could not identify, perhaps another of her suitors named Liebrecht, to whom he gave two head-blows. Eve also denies that Ruprecht is responsible but names no one. Adam appears relieved to hear Liebrecht's name, but Walter is surprised to see him so unwilling to hear Eve's complete testimony. Ruprecht's aunt testifies she heard Eve in her garden, one half-hour before he broke her door in, seeming discontented and disgusted in a man's company. When she asked Eve who the man is, she answered "Ruprecht", which he again denies. The aunt returned to follow the man's footprints in the snow and saw a pile of excrement along the way. She also saw evidence of a deformed foot, perhaps the devil's, leading all the way to Judge Adam's house. Walter wants the case immediately stopped. Adam pronounces Ruprecht guilty, who, convinced Adam is the man, rushes towards him, but he escapes, leaving his robe behind. Eve worries about Ruprecht being sent to prison, but is reassured by Walter, who learns that Adam demanded from her sexual favors in return of preventing Ruprecht's conscription in the army on dangerous missions.
"Woyzeck" [edit]
"Woyzeck". Time: 1830s. Place: Germany.
"Woyzeck" text at http://books.google.ca/books?id=TCac3aGR9bUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Woyzeck&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=
Woyzeck, a soldier, is subject to anguish for no specific reason. He experiences sights and sounds intensely. While tapping his feet on the ground, he is afraid on discovering that the sound is one of struck wood. For none of his worries does he obtain any encouragement from his supposed friend, Andres. Woyzeck executes menial tasks for his captain and acts as an experimental subject to a doctor in a nonsensical study on the effects of a diet consisting entirely of peas. The captain seems well-intentioned towards Woyzeck, but his recommandations are vague and unhelpful. He particularly recommends that he should stop pissing in the open. Woyzeck visits his girlfriend, Marie, living near the army camp as a whore, with a small boy to care for. Marie is tempted to stray from Woyzeck by the arrival of a drum major. Woyzeck and Marie go to a local fair, but the pleasures associated with this and other activities are minimal and brief. Suspicious of the drum major, Woyzeck walks up to him and is beaten. All the more suspicious and anguished in the extreme, Woyzeck stabs Marie to death by a pond and throws the knife away there. When next seen at an inn, he has neglected to wipe the incriminating blood away from his clothes. When asked about it, he says he cut himself shaving, but a man comments he is certainly talented in smearing his right elbow with his right hand. Worried about the incriminating knife, he returns to the pond to look for it but has difficulty in finding it. He finds the corpse first and asks in a delusion: "Why so pale, Marie?" He finds the knife and runs off to escape being discovered. A policeman is called in to the case, impressed by the deed: "A good murder, a proper murder, a lovely murder, as lovely a murder as anyone could wish. We've not had a murder like this for years."
