Georg Büchner (October 17, 1813 Goddelau, Darmstadt-February
19, 1837 Zurich) After attending Gymnasium in Darmstadt 1825-31,
the doctor's son studied natural science and medicine in
Strasbourg and Giessen from 1831-33. During this period he
became engaged to Luise Wilhelmine, daughter of the pastor Johann
Jakob Jaeglé, in whose home he resided. In Hessen's state
university in Giessen, he turned above all toward practical
medicine, and here also came in contact with republican and early
socialist groups. Converted to republican doctrines, he
participated in founding the "Society for the Rights of Man." At
the beginning of 1834 Büchner first met Friedrich Ludwig
Weidig, who, after the study of theology had founded the "German
Society" in Butzbach and as the rector of the municipal school
had become an integrating figure in the upper Hessen opposition.
While Weidig endeavored to support the parliamentary opposition
by exposure of responsibility for various mistakes, lies, and
abuses, Büchner focused his attention on the problematical
monarchical principle, that the liberals only half-heartedly
opposed. Together with August Becker and Weidig, Bühner in
June 1834 anonymously published the Hessischen
Landboten, a revolutionary publication focused above all
toward the peasantry. Its radicalism promoted a comprehensive
appraisal of contemporary social conditions. With a warrant for
his arrest menacing him for his writings, in 1835 he had to flee
to Strasbourg, where he resolved to continue his medical studies.
There he occupied himself intensively with Cartesius and Spinoza
and translated Victor Hugo's dramas, Lucretia Borgia
and Mary Tudor. In 1836 Büchner received the degree
of doctor of philosophy and became a lecturer(Dozent) in natural history in Zurich. An outbreak
of typhoid sickness in 1837 precipitated his early death.
Büchner's fame and importance was largely determined by the politicalization of his thought. Left radical critics in particular praised his works as early socialist engaged poetry. However, passages in letters and the testimony of persons close to him late in Büchner's life warrant the assumption that he had distanced himself from earlier political opinions. Only in the early 20th century did he exerted a significant influence on German literature with the re-discovery of his drama Danton's Death and his work Woyzeck, whose socially critical coloring, its anticipation of its naturalism and "Verism," and its almost expressionist power of expression.
The satirical comedy Leonce and Lena caricatured the
boasting of contemporary provincial potentates, and the story
Lenz, also left fragmentary, depicted the dramatic
fate of the spiritual mental derangement of the foundered
Sturm and Drang poets. Bourgeois radicalism in
Germany strengthened after 1830 and encountered its first apogee
in the protest movement of 1830-34. It was important for the
launching of the German worker movement and strengthened
political and social tensions in the pre-March which incited the
revolution.
Bibliography
J. C. Hauschild Georg Büchner: Biographie
(Stuttgart, 1993).
Suzanne Lehmann (ed) Georg Büchner 1813-1837: Katalog
der Ausstellung Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt (Basel-Frankfurt/M, 1987).
D. Goldschnigg Rezeptions- und Wirkungsgeschichte Georg
Büchners (Kronberg/Taunus, 1975).
JGC revised this file
(http://www.ohiou.edu/~chastain/ac/buchner.htm) on
September 9, 2004.
Please E-mail comments or suggestions to chastain@www.ohiou.edu
© 1997, 2004 James Chastain.
Helmut Reinalter translated by James Chastain
Bibliography