Nineteenth Century German Plays: Fraz Grillparzer, Johann Nepomuk Nestroy, Friedrich Hebbel: King Ottocar’s Rise and Fall, The Talisman, Agnes Bernauer

This volume brings together plays by three distinctive Viennese playwrights: Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872), Johann Nepomuk Nestroy (1801-62), and Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63). King Ottcar’s Rise and Fall, by Grillparzer, is less a tragedy than an elaborate celebration of the Hapsburgs. A very different work, Nestroy’s The Talisman is a hilarious satire on the prejudice against redheads in an Austrian village. In Agnes Bernauer, Hebbel makes a plea for women’s rights against a Hegelian backdrop of social change.