Eminent Austrian dramatist and Austria's most famous poet.
Background
Grillparzer was born January 15, 1791, at Vienna. There he spent his entire life, save for a few brief journeys to other countries, from which he always returned with the firm conviction that, despite the stifling atmosphere and deadening censorship of the Metternich regime, he could not exist anywhere outside his beloved city.
Education
Grillparzer was a serious student of history, philosophy, and the literatures of many nations, ancient and modern. The ripening influence of these studies is revealed not only in his numerous critical essays but also in his dramas.
Career
In 1813 Grillparzer entered civil service, was advanced to the directorship of the imperial archives in 1832, was pensioned in 1856 with the title of Hofrat (Court Councilor), and in 1861 was appointed by the emperor to life membership in the Herrenhaus (House of Peers).
Grillparzer's fame rests on his dramas, in which we find a happy blending of Classical, Romantic, and realistic traits. After a juvenile attempt at tragedy, Blanka von Kastilien ("Blanche of Castile"), begun at the age of sixteen, he produced Die Ahnfrau (The Ancestress) in 1817, a tragedy which met with great success on the stage in Vienna and throughout Germany. Embittered by the criticism of the lurid effects in this work, the poet determined to prove that he could move his audience without recourse to the decried "cheap" devices. The result was Sappho (1818), a beautiful poetical play based on the legendary tragical love of the great Greek poetess.
Then followed, 1818-1821, the magnificent trilogy, Das goldene Vliess ("The Golden Fleece"), a masterful treatment of that ancient Greek legend, convincingly humanizing Medea's destruction of her rival and her own children.
The next two plays are tragedies based on Austrian history: KönigKonig Ottokars GlückGluck und Ende (1825) (King Ottocar: His Rise and Fall), and Ein treuer Diener seines Herrn (1828) (A Faithful Servant of His Master). Although the former glorifies the founding of the Hapsburg dynasty in Austria, and the latter is a proclamation of loyalty to the throne, both dramas aroused so much factional hostility that the poet thought it wise to return to the field of ancient legend, and therefore wrote Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen (1831) ("Waves of the Sea and of Love"), a dramatization of the story of Hero and Leander.
Three years later in 1834, Der Traum, ein Leben ("The Dream, a Life") was performed, a play which ends happily for the hero after he has been cured for his vainglory by a tragic dream.
Grillparzer's only comedy appeared in 1838, Weh'dem, der lügtlugt (Thou Shalt Not Lie), a serious play with a happy ending, so misunderstood and severely criticized that the poet determined never to offer another drama to the ungrateful public.
His death on January 21, 1872, was mourned by the whole nation. After his death the manuscripts of three tragedies, which he had written in his retirement during the forties and fifties, were found among his papers and published in 1873.