I find in human nature a terrible uniformity, in human relationships an irrepressible force, shared by everyone and no one. The individual just foam on the wave, greatness mere chance, the rule of genius a puppet-play, a laughable struggle with an iron law. - Georg Büchner
Büchner was born October 17th, 1813 in Goddelau in the Grand
Duchy of Hessen-Darmstadt. He attended a private school and later the
Darmstadt Gymnasium, then started studying
zoology and comparative
anatomy in
Strassbourg in 1831. The times were politically rather
unstable, and he came into
contact with a group of
radical students. He also secretly became engaged with his
landlord's
daughter in 1832.
After moving to
Giessen in 1833 to continue his studies he and a few friends formed the
revolutionary, secret and shortlived "Society For Human Rights". He also helped write the illegal
newspaper "Hessischer Landbote", which urged peasants to revolt. However, its
Marxist content was a bit ahead of its time and did not reap much success. Anyway, he got promptly snitched on but in the end the
police let him go free.
In January 1835 he wrote "
Dantons Tod", a tragedy about
Danton's
disillusionment with the
French Revolution. In March he had to flee to
Strassbourg to avoid
arrest. In 1836 he wrote "
Leonce und Lena", a romantic comedy, and "
Lenz". In October 1836 he moved to
Zurich, where he had received a
doctorate for his
dissertation on "The Nervous System of the Barbel".
During several months he had been working on "
Woyzeck". With this he deepened the theme that had already been noticeable in "Leonce and Lena": The
powerlessness of the
individual,
social determination and
free will. Based on a true story, the
anti-hero a poor and desperate
soldier who in the end is driven to kill his
mistress. It was later made into an
opera called "
Wozzeck" by
Alban Berg.
Although it was never completed, Georg Büchner's drama fragment Woyzeck occupies a pivotal place in the development of modern drama: its stature and influence have been recognized by representatives of naturalism, expressionism, epic theater, the theater of the absurd, and the documentary theater.
- David G. Richards, Georg Büchner's Woyzeck - A History of its Criticism
"Woyzeck" was to become Büchner's most famous work, but he did not live to see it.
He fell ill with
typhus and died on February 19th, 1837 at the age of 23.