Frank Wedekind
(born July 24, 1864, Hannover, Hanover — died March 9, 1918, Munich, Ger.) German actor and playwright. He lived in Switzerland (1872 – 84) and then in Munich, where he worked at various jobs, including journalist and cabaret performer. He wrote plays from 1891, when his tragedy
The Awakening of Spring created a scandal with its theme of awakening adolescent sexuality. In his "Lulu" cycle,
Earth Spirit (1895) and
Pandora's Box (1904), he extended the theme of sex to the underworld of society and introduced the amoral Lulu. His plays used episodic scenes, fragmented dialogue, distortion, and caricature, prefiguring the
Theatre of the Absurd and forming a transition from realism to Expressionism.
For more information on Frank Wedekind, visit Britannica.com.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.