Prince Friedrich of Homburg: A New Translation for the American Stage

Fiction & Literature, Drama, Continental European, Nonfiction, Entertainment, Classics
Cover of the book Prince Friedrich of Homburg: A New Translation for the American Stage by Heinrich von Kleist, New Directions
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Author: Heinrich von Kleist ISBN: 9780811223553
Publisher: New Directions Publication: January 17, 1978
Imprint: New Directions Language: English
Author: Heinrich von Kleist
ISBN: 9780811223553
Publisher: New Directions
Publication: January 17, 1978
Imprint: New Directions
Language: English

Prince Friedrich of Homburg is the indisputable dramatic masterpiece of Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), a leading figure, along with Goethe and Schiller, among early German Romantics.

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.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Prince Friedrich of Homburg is the indisputable dramatic masterpiece of Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), a leading figure, along with Goethe and Schiller, among early German Romantics.

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.

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