Georg Büchner

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Büchner, Georg (Goddelau nr. Darmstadt, 1813-37, Zurich), the son of a doctor, was at Darmstadt Gymnasium, and in 1831 commenced medical studies in Strasburg, which he continued from 1833 in Gießen, whence he fled back to Strasburg in March 1835, finally settling as a political refugee in Switzerland. His dissertation Mémoire sur le système nerveux du barbeau (1836) won him a doctorate from the University of Zurich and election as a corresponding member of the Société d'histoire naturelle in Strasburg; after a trial lecture, ‘Über die Schädelnerven der Fische’, at Zurich University in the autumn of 1836 he was appointed lecturer in comparative anatomy, and began what promised to become a distinguished career. He was in his twenty-fourth year when he died of typhoid. During his first stay in Strasburg Büchner became engaged to Minna (Wilhelmine) Jaeglé, the daughter of a clergyman, J. J. Jaeglé, whom he hoped to marry as soon as he could set up house. Summoned to his sick-bed, Minna arrived in Zurich two days before Büchner's death.

In Strasburg Büchner became keenly interested in the ideas and activities of movements against authoritarian government and political oppression, which he pursued with vigour upon his return to his native Hesse. He founded the Gesellschaft der Menschenrechte in March 1834, which was modelled on the Société des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen of 1830, and expressed his radical socialist ideas in the political pamphlet Der Hessische Landbote (July 1834). He aimed at this stage at a Hessian peasants' revolt, because he was convinced that only the use of force would effect social justice and remedy the distressing conditions of the lower classes. The mainspring of his courageous but dangerous political activities was his deep sympathy with social misery. In an age of economic crises and reluctant constitutional and fiscal reforms, the peasants in the upper part of the Grand Duchy of Hesse had reason to be particularly aggrieved at their lot. The July revolution in Paris had evoked in September 1830 a local revolt (‘Blutbad von Södel’), which had quickly been suppressed by the army. Büchner associated with a poor ex-student of theology, August Becker, who later commented on Büchner: ‘Die Grundlage seines Patriotismus war wirklich das reinste Mitleid und ein edler Sinn für alles Schöne und Große’. Through Becker, Büchner made contact with the teacher Friedrich Ludwig Weidig. But his revolutionary activities came to an abrupt end with the arrest of his collaborators Karl Minnigerode, Becker, and Weidig after a treacherous denunciation. Büchner himself narrowly escaped. The arrest of the conspirators was not the only cause of Büchner's disillusionment with his revolutionary activities; for the people themselves had failed, for fear of persecution, to respond to the coordinated mass movement he had envisaged.

Büchner wrote his first play, Dantons Tod, early in 1835. In it is reflected his detailed study of the French Revolution seen in the light of his recent experience and disillusionment. During his second stay in Strasburg he followed up the traces of J. M. R. Lenz, whose works and aesthetic views he greatly admired, to the point of making him the subject of a Novelle, Lenz (posth., 1839). Büchner translated Victor Hugo's Lucrèce Borgia and Marie Tudor (Lukretia Borgia and Maria Tudor), and began Woyzeck, which, though continued in Zurich, remained, like Lenz, a fragment. His final intentions in these writings are uncertain.

Of all Büchner's works only Dantons Tod (1835) was published in his lifetime. The comedy Leonce und Lena, written for a competition for the best German comedy, appeared in 1838. In 1850 Georg's younger brother Ludwig Büchner published Nachgelassene Werke, but Woyzeck was only discovered and published in 1879 by K. E. Franzos. Leonce und Lena was first performed in 1895, Dantons Tod in 1902, and Woyzeck in 1913. Büchner did not fully come into his own until the 20th c., although K. Gutzkow, F. Hebbel, and G. Hauptmann had perceived his unique qualities. Hauptmann introduced Büchner's work to the literary club Durch in 1887. Büchner expressed his views on aesthetics and his strong opposition to German classicism, especially to Schiller, in the central section of his Novelle Lenz. Classical idealism was to him a distortion of reality, a view related to the Anmerkungen übers Theater by J. M. R. Lenz. Büchner sought to give an impression of reality by the interaction of a variety of stylistic devices. His appeal to modern attitudes lies also in his questioning scrutiny of all forms of convention and positive beliefs (see also Puppenspiel). His reported last words suggest that he had abandoned his early atheistic attitudes.

Büchner's posthumous papers were first published by his brother Ludwig Büchner in 1850. Of great influence was the edition of Sämtliche Werke, published by K. E. Franzos in 1879. Sämtliche Werke, including correspondence, ed. F. Bergemann, appeared in 1922 (reissued 1965) and the historisch-kritische Ausgabe, ed. W. R. Lehmann (2 vols.), 1967-71 (Hamburger Ausgabe); Gesammelte Werke. Erstdrucke und Erstausgaben in Faksimiles (10 vols.), ed. Th. M. Mayer, 1987, and Werke und Briefe (Münchner Ausgabe), ed. K. Pörnbacher et al., 1988. Georg Büchner und ‘Hund’ und ‘Kater’. Unbekannte Briefe des Exils, ed. Th. M. Mayer et al., appeared in (1993; Georg Büchner (1993) by Jan-Christoph Hauschild is the first fully documented biography with hitherto unpublished material. See Büchner Prize.

Büchner, Georg (gā'ôrk bükh'nər) , 1813–37, German dramatist. He was a student of medicine and a political agitator. He died at the age of 24, leaving a powerful drama, Danton's Death (1835, tr. 1928), a pessimistic view of the French Revolution and revolutionary politics; a fragmentary tragedy, Woyzeck (1837, tr. 1928), a psychological study of an alienated character that Alban Berg adapted for his opera Wozzeck; and a comedy, Leonce and Lena (1850, tr. 1928). Büchner greatly admired the poet J. M. R. Lenz, whom he made the hero of a novella, Lenz (1838, tr. 1955), which he never completed. His plays, unorthodox in subject and style, were not staged until many decades after his death.

Bibliography

See collections of his plays ed. by V. Price (tr. 1971) and M. Hamburger (tr. 1972); studies by A. H. J. Knight (1951) and R. Hauser (1974).