Expressionism In The Works Of Georg Kaiser

Georg Kaiser, After Expressionism. Five Plays.

After Expressionism had run its feverish course, its foremost exponent Georg Kaiser (1878-1945) ‑‑ The Burghers of Calais, From Morn to Midnight, Gas ‑‑ proved equally adept at the lighter fare demanded by post-war audiences. Of some nine hundred comedies premièred in the Weimar era, his Pulp Fiction was an early triumph, often revived and played now as parody of a contagious literary genre, now as critique of Old World pieties. The New Woman emerged even more clearly towards the end of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ in Clairvoyance ‑‑ though now also as antagonist, from whose vampish sophistication the loving wife emancipates both self and wayward husband. Between these two comedies, in One Day in October (acclaimed especially in Gustav Gründgens’s gripping production) focus shifts to psychological wrestling in deadly earnest over the parentage of a child. A parallel dilemma underlies the compelling plot, rising tension and searing climax of Agnete ‑‑ an uncanny precursor of the ‘Heimkehrer’ literature inspired by soldiers and captives returning home after 1945. This was indeed a fitting play to mark the rebirth of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. Kaiser had died in exile, though not before taking leave, like Prospero, with another wry comedy, The Gordian Egg.

Expressionism in the Works of Georg Kaiser

Georg Kaiser and the Critics

Study of the critical attention devoted to Georg Kaiser, the important German dramatist. Georg Kaiser (1878-1945) is considered one of the most enigmatic figures in modern German literature; while agreeing on his importance in the development of German drama, critics have always been puzzled by the diversity of and contradictions in his works. This book traces the evolution of Kaiser's literary reputation over more than eighty years of scholarship. It shows how the initial critical approaches (formalistic, socio-ethical, psychological) were developed by later scholars; reviews Kaiser's place in Expressionism and the impact of his aesthetic theories on the development of epic theatre; and offers a performance history of Kaiser's dramas on stage from 1945 to 1990.