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Friedrich Hebbel Biography

Friedrich Hebbel Image

HEBBEL, Friedrich (1813-63). A German, one of the greatest of modern dramatists. He was born in Wesselburen (at that time Danish) in Schleswig-Holstein, of poverty-stricken parents. His childhood was hard and cheerless. His father, embittered by failure and want and almost hating his children, died when Friedrich, still with little schooling, was about 14 years old. His mother, a servant, had a good heart, but a bad temper. After his father's death the poet became office boy to a sort of town clerk and petty magistrate, who gave him at least bread to eat and books to read. The literary efforts of this period-tales, poems, and dramatic fragments-show the influence of Hoffman, Schiller, the Schlegels, and Tieck. His youthful publications in the Neue Pariser Modeblätter of Hamburg attracted the attention of the editor, Amalia Schoppe, who found means to bring the young poet to Hamburg in February, 1835. Here he worked hard on stories and essays, began his famous diary, and became enamoured of the poor but faithful seamstress Elise Lensing. In order to study law he set out on foot for Heidelberg in March, 1836; but, having no formal preparation, he could not matriculate, but was, however, permitted to attend lectures, first on law, and then on literature and philosophy. Poverty and lack of preparation hampered him. In September he walked to Munich. Schwab and Uhland, whom he saw on the way, helped him but little. At Munich, where he heard Görres and Schelling, only the scant savings of Elise Lensing kept him from actual starvation. But he read widely and well during those dreadful months and learned from bitter experience what turned out to be the keynote of most of his tragedies--that the tragic in life is very often due rather to a conflict between the idiosyncrasies of an individual and the world than to any moral transgression. His Munich writings were mostly sombre lyrics. Another long, hard walk from Munich to Hamburg in the early spring of 1839 nearly killed him, but Elise nursed him back to life. At a suggestion got from reading Gutzkow's (q.v.) drama Saul, he completed, in January, 1840, his first important drama, Judith, a realistic dramatization in prose of the apochryphal story of Judith and Holofernes. Through Amalia Schoppe and the Berlin actress Crelinger it was successfully given in Berlin and Hamburg. This made Hebbel a name. His next drama, Genoveva (1841), five acts in verse, is a subjective study of Hebbel's own personality in the character of Golo. Raupach's drama of the same name prevented its presentation in Berlin. His next effort, Der Diamant (1841), a comedy, was unsuccessful. Meantime Elise Lensing had borne him a son, and the young father was penniless. He went to Copenhagen, hoping that King Christian VIII would make him professor of æsthetics in the University of Kiel; but, disappointed in this, he finally secured from the King a pension of 600 thalers yearly for two years of travel. In September, 1843, he went to Paris; but his poverty and ignorance of the language prevented him from getting as much as he had hoped. The death of his son Max was a hard blow to him. But he completed his drama, Maria Magdalena, a three-act prose tragedy of Christianity holding fast to the letter of the moral law, begun in Copenhagen in 1844. This was the first of the modern naturalistic dramas, thus a forerunner of Ibsen's social problem drama. Shortly before its publication in October of that year he left for Rome. On account of worrying about Elise and his newborn son and with his habitual gloominess he got comparatively little out of his stay in Italy. In Naples he worked on his terrible dramatic fragment Moloch, ranking with Schiller's Demetrius and Kleist's Robert Guiscard. Late in 1845 Hebbel arrived in Vienna, too poor to appear in good society. If two noble young Poles bad not given him means, he would have left Vienna in despair. But he remained, and met Christine Enghaus, a famous actress of the Burgtheater, who had already conceived a great admiration for his dramas and a strong affection for himself. Hebbel now had the difficult choice either of the faithful but poverty-stricken and ignorant Elise, mother of his children, and, as he himself expressed it, "the pistol," or of the brilliant, rich, appreciative actress, with whom a successful career was practically certain. He made the selfish choice, but the only one that could save his life as a man and as an artist. Elise was furious, but later became reconciled and lived for a time in his house. Hebbel and Miss Engbaus (died 1910) were married in the spring of 1849. He now turned to his literary work with zeal, finishing first his masterpiece, Herodes and Mariamne (1848), a poetic-realistic dramatization in five acts of blank verse of the struggle of two exceptional individuals, resulting in the man's becoming a mere beast and the woman's becoming a dagger of ice-a splendid exemplification of Hebbel's theory of the tragedy. This was performed with no great success in Vienna in 1849. He lived a retired life, having little to do with Grillparzer (q.v.) and Halm, and least of all with Laube, director of the Burgtheater. His journalistic efforts made him extremely unpopular in Viennese literary circles. Agnes Bernauer (1851) is a five-act prose dramatization of the story of the Augsburg barber's beautiful daughter, beloved of Duke Albrecht but cruelly murdered by the command of his father. the reigning Duke Ernst. Its première in Munich in 1852 was a success. His next tragedy, Gyges und sein Ring (1854), is a five-act verse dramatization of the familiar story found in Herodotus and Plato, of Kandaules and his wife Rhodope, by many considered a better interpretation of the problem of Ibsen's (q.v.) A Doll's House. This was not produced until 1889. Then came his most ambitious work, his Nibeluugen trilogy (Der gehörnte Siegfried the one-act prologue, and the two five-act dramas, Siegfrieds Tod and Kriemhilds Rache), which was not completed until 1860, and put on the stage successfully the following year, with Frau Hebbel as Brunhilde in Siegfrieds Tod and as Kriemhild in Kriemhilds Rache. The trilogy won the Schiller prize. Hebbel follows not the Norse but the mediaeval version of the story, and was not altogether successful in transforming the epic into the dramatic. With his wife and daughter the poet lived winters in Vienna and summers in his country home at Orth, near Gmund, enjoying the reputation which he so richly deserved. On account of the hardships and worry of his earlier days his health broke in 1859, and he died, while at work on his drama, Demetrius, in December, 1863.

Among his other works may be mentioned: lyrics and ballads; the prose narratives Anna (1836) and Die Kuh (1849); the æsthetic essays Mein Wort über das Drama (1843) and Vorwort zur Maria Magdalena (1844); his famous diaries (from 1835): the dramas Michelangelo (1850) and Julia (1851); and his correspondence. His complete works were issued in an historical-critical edition of 22 volumes, including his diaries and his letters (1901-08). Consult: Emil Kuh, Biographie Friedrich Hebbels (2 vols., Vienna, 1877); Bamberg, "Hebbel," in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. xi (Leipzig, 1875-1912); Kulke, Erinnerungen an Fr. Hebbel (Vienna, 1878); A. Neumann, Aus Friedrich Hebbels Werdezeit (Leipzig, 1899); Bulthaupt, Dramaturgie des Schauspiels, vol. iii (Oldenburg, 1902) ; Georgy, Die Tragödie Friedrich Hebbels nach ihrem Ideengehalt (ib., 1904); R. M. Werner, Hebbel, ein Lebensbild (Berlin, 1905).