Christian Dietrich Grabbe

Ladislaus Lob, "Christian Dietrich Grabbe," Encyclopedia of German Literature [Konzett, Matthias, ed.], Routledge (2015), p. 362-3:

In German cultural history, Christian Dietrich Grabbe's work coincides with the Biedermeier period, the transitional phase between the end of classicism and Romanticism on the one hand and the rise of realism on the other. In the context of German political history, it falls into the "Restauration" or Vormärz" era, which began with the defeat of Napoléon in 1815 and closed with the revolutions of March 1848. Sigmund Freud described Grabbe as "an original and rather peculiar poet," Heinrich Heine called him "a drunken Shakespeare," and Karl Immermann saw him as having both "a wild, ruined nature" and "an outstanding talent." Although his image as a flawed genius lingers, he is now also hailed as one of Germany's major experimental dramatists, and the irregularities of his plays are regarded as an integral part of their originality.
The only child of the local jailer, Grabbe felt oppressed and alienated in his provincial hometown of Detmold where, as he wrote to Ludwig Tieck, "an educated person is looked upon as an inferior kind of fattened ox." Physically frail and psychologically unstable, he seemed the archetype of the dissolute bohemian artist, oscillating between sullen shyness and aggressive self-assertion, imperiously demanding recognition but refusing to please or to conform, performing erratically in his duties as army legal officer, staying in a destructive marriage, and precipitating his fatal decline by excessive drinking. While it is uncertain to what extent his "bizarreness" was natural and to what extent it was cultivated to shock his middle-class contemporaries, the "Grabbe myth" soon become confused with, and has often overshadowed, his work.
After his death, Grabbe was condemned to oblivion by classically oriented criticism, until both the nationalists and naturalists of the late 19th century rediscovered him as a kindred soul. In the 20th century, the Expressionists celebrated him as a fellow outcast of bourgeois society, the Dadaists and surrealists welcomed him as another rebel against rationality, the Nazis exalted him as a prophet of "blood and soil," Brecht placed him alongside Georg Büchner in the "non-Aristotelian" tradiiton leading from the Elizabethans to his own Marxist "Epic Theater," and more recent commentators have stressed his affinities with postmodernism.

[...]

By consesus Grabbe's supreme achievement consists of his innovations in historical drama. Unlike the historical plays of Schiller and his followers, which were classical in style and idealistic in character, Grabbe's historical plays are prosaic in language, episodic in structure, and realistic in outlook. Above all, they present history as determined not by abstract ideas or outstanding personalities but by mass movements and the contingencies of time, place, circumstance and chance. [...] Speaking of Napoleon, he rightly claimed to have accomplished "a dramatic epic-revolution," although he might well have included his other historical plays in that remark.
Grabbe's "revolution" in historical drama was accompanied by a revolutionary approach to drama in general. Once dismissed as signs of incompetence, capriciousness, or a sick psyche, his methods now seem eminently modern. Full of incongruities and distortions, deliberately avoiding any appearance of harmony or beauty, his disjointed actions, ambiguous characters, dissonant dialogue, and tragicomic moods not only reflect the social, intellectual, and aesthetic tensions of his own age but also anticipate the "open" form and "absurd" content favoured by many dramatists in ours. Long before the cinema was invented, he also foreshadowed many of its techniques.

    
Christian Dietrich Grabbe (1801-1836), lithograph by W. Severin after a drawing by Joseph Wilhelm Pero (1808-1862)

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NB: Christian Dietrich Grabbe's life was dramatized by Hanns Johst in Der Einsame [The Loner] in 1917. Brecht wrote Baal in response the following year.

Fassbinder Is Baal Is Fassbinder

Dennis Lim, "Baal: The Nature of the Beast," Criterion, March 20, 2018:

From today’s vantage, this nearly lost film opens a window into a formative phase of the New German Cinema. Schlöndorff could not have known its documentary value at the time, but among other things, Baal stands as a remarkable record of the young Fassbinder. The Fassbinder persona as we have come to know it is fully present in his incarnation of Baal: the heedless pleasure-seeking, the improbable magnetism, the sly awareness and skilled exploitation of power dynamics. Brecht moved from the relatively free-form provocations of Baal to the Marxist principles of epic theater. But for Fassbinder—who died at age thirty-seven, leaving behind more than forty films—this scabrous vision of doomed and destructive genius would acquire an air of uncanny prophecy.

Bertolt Brecht, "Der Choral vom Grossen Baal" (1918)

 

Bertolt Brecht, “Der Choral vom Großen Baal” Prolog des Stücks Baal (1918)     Als im weißen Mutterschoße aufwuchs Baal War der Himmel schon so groß und still und fahl Jung und nackt und ungeheuer wundersam Wie ihn Baal dann liebte, als Baal kam.   Und der Himmel blieb in Lust und Kummer da Auch wenn Baal schlief, selig war und ihn nicht sah: Nachts er violett und trunken Baal Baal früh fromm, er aprikosenfahl.   Und durch Schnapsbudike, Dom, Spital Trottet Baal mit Gleichmut und gewöhnt sich's ab. Mag Baal müde sein, Kinder, nie sinkt Baal: Baal nimmt seinen Himmel mit hinab.   In der Sünder schamvollem Gewimmel Lag Baal nackt und wälzte sich voll Ruh: Nur der Himmel, aber immer Himmel Deckte mächtig seine Blöße zu.   Und das große Weib Welt, das sich lachend gibt Dem, der sich zermalmen läßt von ihren Knien Gab ihm einige Ekstase, die er liebt Aber Baal starb nicht: er sah nur hin.   Und wenn Baal nur Leichen um sich sah War die Wollust immer doppelt groß. Man hat Platz, sagt Baal, es sind nicht viele da. Man hat Platz, sagt Baal, in dieses Weibes Schoß.   Gibt ein Weib, sagt Baal, euch alles her Laßt es fahren, denn sie hat nicht mehr! Fürchtet Männer nicht beim Weib, die sind egal: Aber Kinder fürchtet sogar Baal.   Alle Laster sind zu etwas gut Und der Mann auch, sagt Baal, der sie tut. Laster sind was, weiß man was man will. Sucht euch zwei aus: eines ist zuviel!   Seid nur nicht so faul und so verweicht Denn genießen ist bei Gott nicht leicht! Starke Glieder braucht man und Erfahrung auch: Und mitunter stört ein dicker Bauch.   Zu den feisten Geiern blinzelt Baal hinauf Die im Sternenhimmel warten auf den Leichnam Baal. Manchmal stellt sich Baal tot. stürzt ein Geier drauf Speist Baal einen Geier, stumm, zum Abendmahl.   Unter düstern Sternen in dem Jammertal Grast Baal weite Felder schmatzend ab. Sind sie leer, dann trottet singend Baal In den ewigen Wald zum Schlaf hinab.   Und wenn Baal der dunkle Schoß hinunter zieht: Was ist Welt für Baal noch? Baal ist satt. Soviel Himmel hat Baal unterm Lid Daß er tot noch grad gnug Himmel hat.   Als im dunklen Erdenschoße faulte Baal War der Himmel noch so groß und still und fahl Jung und nackt und ungeheuer wunderbar Wie in Baal einst liebte, als Baal war.

David Bowie, “Baal’s Hymn” Baal EP (1982) • tr. John Willett     Whilst his mother's womb contained the growing Baal Even then the sky was waiting quiet and pale Naked, young, immensely marvelous Like Baal loved it, when he came to us   That same sky remained with him in joy and care Even when Baal slept peaceful and unaware At night a lilac sky, a drunken Baal Turning pious as the sky grows pale   So through hospital, cathedral, whiskey bar Baal kept moving onwards and just let things go When Baal's tired, boys, Baal cannot fall far He will have his sky down there below   When the sinners congregate in shame together Baal lay naked, reveling in their distress Only sky, a sky that will go on forever Formed a blanket for his nakedness   And that lusty girl, the world, who'll laughing yield To the men who'll stand the pressure of her thighs Sometimes gave him love-bites, such as can't be healed Baal survived it, he just used his eyes   And when Baal saw lots of corpses scattered round He felt twice the thrill, despite the lack of room "Space enough" said Baal, "Then I'll thicken the ground Space enough within this woman's womb"   / / / /   Any vice for Baal has got its useful side It's the man who practices it, he can't abide Vices have their point, once you see it as such Stick to two for one will be too much   Slackness, softness are the sort of things to shun Nothing could be harder than the quest for fun Lots of strength is needed and experience too Swollen bellies can embarrass you   Under gloomy stars and this poor veil of tears Baal will graze a pasture till it disappears Once it's been digested to the forest's teeth Baal trod singing for a well earned sleep   Baal can spot the vultures in the stormy sky As they wait up there to see if Baal will die Sometimes Baal pretends he's dead, but vultures swoop Baal in silence dines on vulture-soup   When the dark womb drags him down to its prize What's the world still mean to Baal, he's overfed So much sky is lurking still behind his eyes He'll just have enough sky when he's dead   Once the Earth's dark womb engulfed the rotting Baal Even then the sky was up there, quiet and pale Naked, young, immensely marvelous Like Baal loved it when he lived with us