The Federfuchser, penpusher from Lessing to Grillparzer
Subtitle: a study focused on Grillparzer's Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg
By: William C. Reeve.
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Montreal; Buffalo
Language: eng
Number of pages: 167
Subjects: Grillparzer, Franz, 1791-1872; German drama -- 18th century -- History and criticism; German drama -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Secretaries in literature
Description: Concentrating on Klesel's role in Franz Grillparzer's Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg, William Reeve argues that Klesel represents the culmination of a literary type - the Federfuchser, or pen-pushing secretary. Evolving out of the political and social conditions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the secretary is an intellectually gifted individual who acts as the agent of a less gifted, usually aristocratic, patron. In the secretary's hand, the pen proves mightier than the sword.

Reeve provides a detailed discussion of Klesel's importance in Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg and examines possible predecessors for the Federfuchser: Wurm from Friedrich von Schiller's Kabale und Liebe, the Sekretar in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Die naturliche Tochter, and Leonhard in Friedrich Hebbel's Maria Magdalene.

He focuses on the features they share, such as deep-seated resentment of social superiors who, by a mere accident of birth, have power over them and, above all, the cunning that they use to overcome their social disqualifications.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [161]-164) and index.