Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Art of Comedy and Social Critique in Nineteenth-Century Germany: Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer (1800-1868)

The Art of Comedy and Social Critique in Nineteenth-Century Germany: Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer (1800-1868)

Pritchett, Rinske
Sammons, Jeffrey L.

Paperback

Series: North American Studies in Nineteenth-Century German Literatu, Book 35

Literary CriticismGeneral DramaPlays

ISBN10: 3039102923
ISBN13: 9783039102921
Publisher: Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publis
Published: Apr 18 2005
Pages: 244
Weight: 0.73
Height: 0.51 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
During the mid-nineteenth century, Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer pursued a fifty-year career as a playwright and theater manager in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at a time of the transformation of court theaters and itinerant troupes into commercial establishments staffed by middle-class professionals and subject to market forces. Although she has been undervalued by some critics past and present who considered her mainly as an adapter of contemporary novels, this study shows that with her thorough knowledge of the European dramatic tradition, her skill as a playwright, and above all her professionalism she overcame institutional and gender bias to develop a form of drama that integrated the social and economic changes of her time. The analysis focuses on her use of the subversive genre of comedy, the strategies she used to evade the censor, and her employment of assertive female and working-class characters. She revived commedia dell'arte techniques of the past while devising innovations that anticipated the subsequent course of drama as well as the film techniques of today.

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