Christian Friedrich Hebbel
(born March 18, 1813, Wesselburn, Schleswig-Holstein — died Dec. 13, 1863, Vienna, Austria) German poet and dramatist. After an early life marked by poverty, he became famous with the prose play
Judith (1840), based on the biblical story. Among his later tragedies,
Maria Magdalene (1843), portraying the lower middle class, and
Gyges and His Ring (1856), probably his most mature and subtle work, are realistic psychological tragedies that make use of
G.W.F. Hegel's concepts of history and moral values. The mythological trilogy
Die Nibelungen (1862) grandiosely depicts the clash between heathen and Christian.
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