| Prince Friedrich of Homburg: A New Translation for the American Stage Revised Edition Contributor(s): Von Kleist, Heinrich (Author), Peters, Diana Stone (Translator), Peters, Frederick G. (Translator) |
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ISBN: 0811206947 ISBN-13: 9780811206945 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation OUR PRICE: $9.86 Product Type: Paperback Published: January 1978 Annotation: Prince Friedrich, the hero of the historic battle of Fehrbellin (1675) against the invading Swedes, receives not laurels for his victory but the sentence of death for disobeying orders in the field. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Drama | European - German |
| Dewey: 832.6 |
| LCCN: 78006670 |
| Physical Information: 0.32" H x 5.22" W x 7.96" (0.28 lbs) 92 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Available until now only in verse translation, it has been newly rendered for the American stage by Diana Stone Peters and Frederick G. Peters. A work of profound psychological insight, Prince Friedrich of Homburg probes with passionate intensity questions fundamental to "civilized" behavior. Prince Friedrich, the hero of the historic battle of Fehrbellin (1675) against the invading Swedes, receives not laurels for his victory but the sentence of death for disobeying orders in the field. Faced with certain execution, his mood swings from abject terror to high-minded exultation as first he challenges, and then accepts, the rule of law and subservience to the state. The action moves relentlessly in the near-frenzied pace characteristic of Kleist. Intended as a paean to a Prussia triumphant in the Napoleonic wars. the play was, ironically, censured and never produced in Kleist's lifetime. In our own day, Prince Friedrich of Homburg has been both denounced as a protofascist work and lauded as a supreme metaphysical disquisition. Whatever the merits of such intellectualization, it remains one of the most moving and performable plays available for the modern stage. |
Contributor Bio(s): Von Kleist, Heinrich: - Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short-story writer, and journalist, who committed double suicide with a terminally ill friend. |