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Edward von Bauernfeld

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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EDWARD VON (1802-1890), Austrian dramatist, was born at Vienna on the 13th of January 1802. Having studied jurisprudence at the university of Vienna, he entered the government service in a legal capacity, and after holding various minor offices was transferred in 1843 to a responsible post on the Lottery Commission. He had already embarked upon politics, and severely criticized the government in a pamphlet, Pia Desideria eines osterreichischen Schriftstellers (1842); and in 1845 he made a journey to England, after which his political opinions became more pronounced. After the Revolution, in 1848, he quitted the government service in order to devote himself entirely to letters. He lived in Vienna until his death on the 9th of August 1890, and was ennobled for his work. As a writer of comedies and farces, Bauernfeld takes high rank among the German playwrights of the century; his plots are clever, the situations witty and natural and the diction elegant. His earliest essays, the comedies Leichtsinn aus Liebe (1831); Das Liebes-Protokoll (1831) and Die ewige Liebe (1834); Burgerlich and Romantisch, (1835) enjoyed great popularity. Later he turned his attention to so-called Salonstiicke (drawing-room pieces), notably Aus der Gesellschaft (1866); Moderne Jugend (1869), and Der Landfrieden (1869), in which he portrays in fresh, bright and happy sallies the social conditions of the capital in which he lived.

A complete edition of Bauernfeld's works, Gesammelte Schriften, appeared in 12 vols. (Vienna, 1871-1873); Dramatischer Nachlass, ed. by F. von Saar (1893); selected works, ed. by E. Horner (4 vols., 1905). See A. Stern, Bauernfeld, Ein Dichterportrat (1890), R. von Gottschall, "E. von Bauernfeld" (in Unsere Zeit, 1890), and E. Horner, Bauernfeld (1900).