Christian Friedrich Hebbel

Christian Friedrich Hebbel , 1813-63, German tragic dramatist. Born poor, he was largely self-educated. Hegel's historical theories influenced his work, which is a link between romantic and realist drama. Hebbel's first play, Judith (1840, tr. 1914), introduced a new type of tragic character, heroic through degradation and retribution rather than through virtue. Other works include Maria Magdalena (1844, tr. 1913-15); the historical tragedies Herod and Mariamne (1850, tr. 1912) and Agnes Bernauer (1852, tr. 1909); Gyges and His Ring (1856, tr. 1914); and the great trilogy The Nibelungs (1862, tr. 1903). His tragedies contain much violent emotion, and they usually portray a struggle between old and new sets of values.

Bibliography: See studies by S. G. Flygt (1968) and M. Garland (1973).

Hebbel, Friedrich (1813–63), German dramatist, whose work bears the imprint of the bitter struggles of his early years. His intuitive insight into feminine psychology resulted in a series of subtle portraits, as in Judith (1840), his first play, Maria Magdalena (1844), a powerful middle-class tragedy which anticipates the later naturalism of Ibsen, and Herodes und Mariamne (1850), a fierce tragedy of jealousy. He was also the author of Gyges und sein Ring (1856) and the trilogy of Die Nibelungen (1861), his last work. He was fortunate in finding an excellent interpreter of his heroines in his wife.