The origin of German tragic drama

Walter Benjamín

Verso, 2003 - Literary Criticism - 256 pages

The Origin of German Tragic Drama is generally acknowledged as Benjamin's most sustained and original work and as one of the main sources of literary modernism in the twentieth century. It begins with a general theoretical introductions on the nature of the baroque art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, concentrating on the peculiar stage-form of royal martyr dramas called Trauerspiel. Later, Benjamin discusses the engravings of Durer, and the theatre of Shakespeare and Calderon. Baroque tragedy, he argues was distinguished from classical tragedy by its shift from myth into history.

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Review: The Origin of German Tragic Drama

User Review  - Nepo - Goodreads

The reason this book is difficult is because Benjamin was trying to articulate an art form and a period that was not yet seen in his time as constituting a distinct realm of its own: Mannerism. If you ...

Review: The Origin of German Tragic Drama

User Review  - Sebastian Baere - Goodreads

"There is strictly speaking only a single book that deserves to be called critical..."

About the author

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was the author of many works of literary and cultural analysis.

John Osborne is Professor of Art History at Carleton University, Ottawa. He is a medievalist and cultural historian who has published widely on the art and architecture of Rome and Venice between the third and sixteenth centuries.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The origin of German tragic drama; Art and Media Studies; Radical thinkers
• Author: Walter Benjamín
• Translated by: John Osbourne
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Verso, 2003
• ISBN: 1859844138, 9781859844137
• Length: 256 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / Drama