WERFEL, FRANZ (189o– ), German writer, was born in Prague on Sept. io, 1890, and lived successively in Prague, Hamburg, Leipzig, Vienna and Breitenfeld, near Vienna. His early poems, Der Weltfreund (1912), Wit Sind (1913), Einander (1915) and Der Gerichtstag (1919), were difficult but beautiful in expression, and were animated by the idea of the community of souls in all living things. The World War and subsequent political troubles gave Werfel's work a strongly revolutionary tinge; his brotherhood seemed best attained by the .destruction of obstacles erected by tradition. His two novels, Nicht der Morder, der Ermordete ist schuld (192o) and Der Abituriententag, deal with the problems and revolt of adolescence, but are less fine than his verse, which ranks with the most powerful in modern German lit erature. His dramatic works include an adaptation of Euripides'
Troades (1915) ; a very brilliant symbolic trilogy, Der Spiegel mensch (1920) ; the more conventional Juarez and Maximilian (1924); Paulus unter den _laden (1926) and Der Tod des Klein burgers (1926). He also wrote a novel on the opera Verdi See A. Luther, Franz Werfel and seine besten Biihnenwerke (1922).