The plays and prose works written during Georg Büchner's short but turbulent life (1813-1837) reveal him to be a writer of startling power and modernity. His dramas centre on heroes of striking individuality - Danton's Death depicts a leader of the French Revolution who becomes a defiant victim of the reign of terror, Leonce and Lena is a comedy in which a world-weary prince attempts to escape an arranged marriage, and Woyzeck portrays a simple soldier who murders his lover while prey to hellish visions. The prose narrative Lenz describes a dramatist's descent into madness, while The Hessian Messenger, a revolutionnary pamphlet, is the call to end tyranny and free the oppressed that led to Büchner's exile from Germany. Also included in this volume are selections from his philosophical-scientific writings and his letters.
John Reddick's vibrant translations are companied by an introduction in which he discusses the radical and provocative nature of Büchner's works. This edition includes a chronology, notes and background to each work, and a bibliography.
About the Author
When he died in 1837, just as Woyzeck (later turned into an opera by modernist Allan Berg) was nearing completion, Georg Büchner was not yet twenty-four years old. It would be almost 60 years before the first of Büchner's plays Leonce and Lena was performed before a German audience—and almost 100 years before his plays were translated into English. His plays have have grown more important and more relevant with the passage of time. Today, he is considered a forerunner of both naturalism and expressionism.
