Christian Friedrich Hebbel
born March 18, 1813, Wesselburen,
Schleswig-Holstein
died Dec. 13, 1863, Vienna
poet and dramatist who added a new
psychological dimension to German drama
and made use of G.W.F. Hegel’s concepts
of history to dramatize conflicts in his
historical tragedies. He was concerned
not so much with the individual aspects
of the characters or events as with the
historical process of change as it led
to new moral values.
Hebbel was the son of a poor mason
and was brought up in poverty. After his
father’s death in 1827, he spent seven
years as a clerk and messenger to a
tyrannical parish bailiff. He founded a
literary circle and had his first poems
published in a local newspaper and in a
Hamburg fashion magazine, whose editor,
Amalie Schoppe, invited him to Hamburg
in 1835 to prepare for the university.
He was supported during this time, both
spiritually and materially, by a
seamstress, Elise Lensing, with whom he
lived. At this time he started his
Tagebücher (published 1885–87;
“Diaries”), which became an important
and revealing literary confession.
Provided with a small income from his
patrons, he went to Heidelberg to study
law but soon left for Munich to devote
himself to philosophy, history, and
literature. Unable to publish his poems,
however, he returned penniless and ill
to Hamburg, where he was nursed by Elise
Lensing.
Hebbel’s powerful prose play Judith,
based on the biblical story, brought him
fame in 1840 upon its performance in
Hamburg and Berlin. His poetic drama
Genoveva was finished in 1841. Still in
need of money, Hebbel received a grant
from the Danish king to spend a year in
Paris and one in Italy. While in Paris
in 1843 he wrote most of the realistic
tragedy Maria Magdalena, published with
a critical and philosophical preface in
1844 and performed in 1846. This
skillfully constructed play, technically
a model “tragedy of common life,” is a
striking portrayal of the middle class.
In 1845 he met the actress Christine
Enghaus, whom he married in 1846. His
life became more tranquil, although he
was permanently weakened by rheumatic
fever as a result of his earlier
privation. The first tragedy written in
this period of his life was the verse
play Herodes und Mariamne (published
1850, performed 1849). A later work, the
Die Nibelungen trilogy (1862)—including
Der gehörnte Siegfried (“The
Invulnerable Siegfried”), Siegfrieds Tod
(“Siegfried’s Death”), and Kriemhilds
Rache (“Kriemhild’s
Revenge”)—grandiosely pictures the clash
between heathen and Christian. The prose
tragedy Agnes Bernauer (1852) treats the
conflict between the necessities of the
state and the rights of the individual.
Gyges und sein Ring (1854; Gyges and His
Ring), probably his most mature and
subtle work, shows Hebbel’s predilection
for involved psychological problems. His
other works include two comedies, a
volume of novellas and stories,
collections of poems, and essays in
literary criticism. On his 50th
birthday, nine months before he died, he
received the Schiller Prize.
