Hebbel

HEBBEL, he'bel, Friedrich, German dram atist: b. Wesselburen (Dithmarschen, Holstein, then belonging to Denmark, now to Prussia), 18 March 1813; d. Vienna, 13 Dec. 1863. His father was a stonemason, his mother a washer woman, and the conditions of his early youth at home were those of the most frightful pov erty. The father particularly was much soured by the family's lot, and had gone so far in his pessimism as to look with disfavor upon even the most innocent pleasures of his two boys, whom he was obliged by bitter necessity to regard as his rivals in the consump tion of their scanty meals. Already in his earliest years Friedrich showed a remarkable sensitiveness to impressions of artistic and stylistic character; he tells us, for instance, that such words as Rippe, Knochen ("rib," by their mere sound aroused his anger, and that he carefully erased them from all his readers and textbooks, while other words, such as Rose, Lilie, Tulpe, produced a voluptuous pleasure in him. His father died when the boy was 14 years old, and Sheriff Mohr undertook to bring him up. This man attracted all the repressed hatred and venom of Hebbel's long years of privations, and, by forcing him to consort at table with the lower servants, developed a snobbish tendency in the boy that later occasionally found rather ugly expression. A reading of Uhland's poem, taught him the essence of poetry, and was the beginning of a long corre spondence, later friendship, between the two men. A number of Hamburg newspaper read ers, having seen some of Hebbel's little poetic contributions to the papers, determined to pro vide him with the means for university study, but their financial aid was so slight that, during his period of preparation, Hebbel was often starving. At this time, while at Hamburg, be gins his friendship for Elise Lensing (1804 54), a poor seamstress, who became so infatu ated with him that she devoted to him all her earnings, going even so far as to support his mother without his knowledge. His at titude toward her was that of a grateful re cipient, who did not quite understand her affection for him. In 1836 he finally began the study of law at Heidelberg, soon giving up both the study and the city and going to Munich in the autumn of the same year. Here, while attending the lectures of the philosopher Schelling and the mysticist Gorres, he soon spent the small sums that Elise Lensing and other persons had given him, and found him self once more in dire want. For two and a half years he never had a warm meal. It is not difficult to understand the illnesses of Hebbel's later years after the privations of his youth and early manhood. At Munich he lived in the family of a poor carpenter, whose daughter, Josefa Schwarz, had considerable in fluence on him and probably suggested the theme and the treatment of Hebbel's middle class tragedy 'Maria Magdalena,' written years later (1843). His first tragedy was written after his return to Hamburg (1839), on a subject found in the apocryphal book of Judith in the Old Testament, and suggested to him by Giulio Romano's painting in the Munich Pinakothek. 'Judith' (1840) is the

story of a woman who sets out to perform a great deed for her country, but actually ex ecutes the deed because the victim (Holo fernes) has won her love and insulted her womanhood. Holofernes, Nebuchadnezzar's general, is a picturesque tyrant of Asiatic type, impersonating boundless energy, brutality and gloom, and a peculiar tendency to self-torture that is characteristic of many of Hebbel's most powerful masculine characters in other plays. In 1843; through the intercession of the Dan ish poet Oehlenschliger, Hebbel, on a visit to Copenhagen, obtained from King Christian VIII of Denmark an annual pension of 600 thalers, to run for two years. it not mar velous?* he writes. 'Think of Friedrich Heb bel and 1,200 thalers; could you ever have mentioned the two in the same breath?* He visited Paris in 1843 and Rome in 1844. At the former city he was informed that Elise Lensing had lost their little boy, and that she was distracted in consequence. She was eager to marry Hebbel now, for his society at least, but he was determined not to marry her. He did not communicate this decision to her definitely, however, until he had settled down in Vienna (1845 to his death), where he be came acquainted with Christine Enghaus (1817-1910), a famous actress at the Hofburg theatre, whom he married in 1846, after a heartrending correspondence with Elise. You surely must understand that my life must either have a larger outlook or come to an end.* His letters and his diaries (the latter are of immense importance in any study of Hebbel; they extend from 1835 to his death) are very illuminating in the information they give on this period of his life and the mental struggles it covered. 'Maria Magdalena) is the story of a girl driven by the worthlessness of a brother, the faithlessness of a lover and the cruel severity of a father to seek her own death. The father's words on hearing of her deed: *The world is a riddle to me,* are a strong arraignment of a generation of parents who impose moral laws upon their children in stead of deriving a system of morality from life. 'Herodes and Mariamne> (in blank verse) is taken, as the name implies, from the tale contained in Flavius Josephus (q.v.), de picting an episode of the transition from ancient paganism and Judaism to later Christian ity. 'Agnes Bernauer' (1851) is a prose tragedy of Bavarian history, a pathetic tale of the love of a noble prince and a burgher maiden. 'Gryges und sein Ring) (1854) is a gloomy and distorted tragedy based on a tale in Plato taken from Lydian history. The Nibelungen Trilogy (finished 1860) has the following sections: 'Der geharnte Siegfried,' (Siegfrieds Tod,) Rache,' and deals, like Richard Wagner's famous trilogy, with the old Teutonic legend of Siegfried, while Wagner's music dramas are based chiefly on the Old Norse version as found in the Eddas, Hebbel's series is taken directly from the Mediaeval German Nibelungenlied (q.v.).