frank-wedekind-baffles-me - Tumblr blog

[frank-wedekind-baffles-me]

I'm on a quest

Working on a project about German playwright Frank Wedekind, and I'm searching for all the adaptations of his work that I can find mention of.

There is apparently an Austrian silent film adaptation of Spring Awakening from 1924. It was directed by Jacob Fleck and Luise Fleck and starred Frida Richard, Leopold von Ledebur and Erich Kaiser-Titz.

I cannot find this movie, but I also haven't found any mention of it being lost, so I'm reaching out into the void that is this website to see if anyone can possibly help me find it.

There is also a German silent film adaptation from 1929 directed by Richard Oswald. Same thing. I don't suppose anyone has any information on this incredibly niche subject?

[frank-wedekind-baffles-me]

so ive spent the last ~2 years searching every bookstore for a copy of the awakening of spring, and ive finally found one in a used bookstore. however, its not the translation im used to. i now own a copy of eric bentley's translation, and i was wondering if its good/any differences, and i figured you were the person to ask

So, I've actually never run across the Eric Bentley translation and did not know it existed! I have copies of Edward Bond's, Jonathan Franzen's, and Carl Muller's, and from the experience of reading those, they do tend to differ greatly in phrasing and some details, but the overall plot remains the same. Sorry I can't really help more!

Out of curiosity, what translation are you used to?

[frank-wedekind-baffles-me]

So I'm reading this article on German playwright Frank Wedekind's death mask. How does this man manage to be strange even AFTER his death???

Apparently his death mask was kinda missing for a while, because one of Wedekind's sisters gave it to a friend, who then had to flee Germany during WWII and brought the mask with him, and then his sister inherited the mask when he died, who then gave it to a German professor after 13 days traveling by air mail.

[frank-wedekind-baffles-me]

Happy birthday Frank Wedekind, quite possibly the strangest playwright in history.

[frank-wedekind-baffles-me]

I am rereading Frank Wedekind's Mine-Haha and I'm going through the introduction about Wedekind, and there's just this one line in the second paragraph that's talking about Wedekind's obsession with the circus, theater, and ballet

"[which are] coincidentally, the few public locations in his day where a 'leg man' such as himself had to the opportunity to admire a women's legs."

And it's just??? not elaborated on????? There is no explanation on where this information came from, or why it's phrased so specifically?

[frank-wedekind-baffles-me]

I would suggest reading this essay also because it provides some insight into him as a person, otherwise if you can get your hands on the introduction to Carl R. Mueller's translations in Frank Wedekind: Four Major Plays or the introduction to Phillip Ward's translation of Mine-Haha

I am dying to read this

[frank-wedekind-baffles-me]

I have read five translations of Spring Awakening, multiple times, and what never fails to make me laugh is that this line

is virtually the same in every translation, except the Ziegler translation from 1910, which uses this

and then that annotation attached to "the whole world turned on sex" is nothing but the original German line

[frank-wedekind-baffles-me]

I’m on a mission

German playwright Frank Wedekind baffles and confuses me greatly for many reasons, hence the title of this blog. Google will not provide me with answers to my questions, so I am reaching out into the void that is tumblr so see if someone happens to possess this knowledge.

I’m on a mission to collect as many English translations of Wedekind’s scripts and novellas as possible, and I thought I had most of them, but in my research, I keep finding things seem to have a tenuous relationship with reality. They may simply not have English translations, but most of these I can’t find ANY info on, so any tidbits would be welcome. 

1. Die Junge Welt (The Young World) - This one is mentioned in the translator’s note from a 1910 translation of Spring Awakening and nowhere else that I can find

2. Der Leibestrank (The Love Potion) - Also mentioned in the translator’s note, and I found an unfinished page from a theater archive of some sort that lists Wilhelm Grütter as an English translator, but nothing beyond that.

3. Hidalla oder Sein und Haben (Hidalla or Being and Having) - This one’s on his wikipedia page but I can’t find anything else.

4. Bismark - Once again, on the wikipedia page but nowhere else that I can find.

5. Heracles - Wikipedia page, nowhere else

6. Censorship - I found an article from Ohio University in the 80s on this one that explains the plot, but nothing else

7. Good at Everything - Confusingly, this one is mentioned in the essay about Censorship as it’s recorded to have been performed with Censorship but I can’t find anything else on it.

I’m sure there are more and I’m also not sure this will reach anyone, but if you happen to know anything, I am absolutely losing my mind.

[frank-wedekind-baffles-me]

My favorite facts about German Playwright Frank Wedekind, author of Spring Awakening (1891)

This list has been collected through his wikipedia page and many, many bios printed in the hard copies of his plays that I possess.

1. He had an obsession with the circus and worked with a circus for the time, but every source I have run across refuses to tell me what exactly he did for the circus. 

2. There was a riot at his funeral.

3. His full name was Benjamin Franklin Wedekind (and he was conceived in San Francisco, which I only bring up because every bio I have read of him insists on mentioning it)

4. There are many reviews of his performance in his own play Censorship that remarked that he was quite bad but quite passionate, including the line “as an actor, he remains as ungifted as he ever was” and “He is not, of course, and actor and certainly will never be one”.

5. He wrote part of his tragedy Lulu in English but it’s such bad and incorrect English that translators have to try to salvage what they can of that section of the script so it makes sense with the other english text.

6. He went to jail because he insulted the Kaiser at some point (however, google will not tell me what exactly he said).

7. He was the great grandfather of author Douglas Adams who, of course, wrote Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

8. There’s a weird section on his Wikipedia page that, when talking about his wife, mentions that “he felt pressure to maintain strenuous creative and sexual activity in order to please her.” and then does not elaborate. 

9. Similarly, his Wikipedia page contains the line “He also enjoyed the pleasure of platonic female company and kept his tendencies toward homosexuality and sadism in check.” which is, once again, not elaborated on. 

10. I can’t find a full list of all of his works anywhere. Every time I try to look, I find more plays and novellas. 

I will certainly think of more sometime later.