The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Büchner, Georg
(g´ôrk bükh´nr) (KEY) , 1813–37, German dramatist. He was a student of medicine and a political agitator. He died at the age of 24, leaving a powerful drama, Danton’s Death (1835, tr. 1928), a pessimistic view of the French Revolution and revolutionary politics; a fragmentary tragedy, Woyzeck (1837, tr. 1928), a psychological study of an alienated character that Alban Berg adapted for his opera Wozzeck; and a comedy, Leonce and Lena (1850, tr. 1928). Büchner greatly admired the poet J. M. R. Lenz, whom he made the hero of a novella, Lenz (1838, tr. 1955), which he never completed. His plays, unorthodox in subject and style, were not staged until many decades after his death.
´ôrk bükh´n
r) (KEY) , 1813–37, German dramatist. He was a student of medicine and a political agitator. He died at the age of 24, leaving a powerful drama, Danton’s Death (1835, tr. 1928), a pessimistic view of the French Revolution and revolutionary politics; a fragmentary tragedy, Woyzeck (1837, tr. 1928), a psychological study of an alienated character that Alban Berg adapted for his opera Wozzeck; and a comedy, Leonce and Lena (1850, tr. 1928). Büchner greatly admired the poet J. M. R. Lenz, whom he made the hero of a novella, Lenz (1838, tr. 1955), which he never completed. His plays, unorthodox in subject and style, were not staged until many decades after his death.
