SOURCE: “Truth and Humanity in Grillparzer's Weh Dem, Der Lügt!,” in Forum for Modern Language Studies, Vol. XXII, No. 4, October, 1986, pp. 289-307.

In the following essay, Roe comments on Grillparzer's only comic drama, noting that in it he subjects the search for truth to comic scrutiny and ultimately advocates a balanced life that incorporates contemplation and action, striving for truth and making mistakes.

In the relative optimism of Grillparzer's one completed comedy, critics have more readily observed the influence of eighteenth-century ideas than in most other plays by Grillparzer. Ernst Alker's assessment in 1930—“von Klassik findet sich keine Spur”¹—has never been wholeheartedly endorsed even by critics who have been concerned to demonstrate Grillparzer's literary and psychological distance from Weimar. Ruth Angress describes the play as “an Austrian puppet-show on Goethean themes”, as Grillparzer's “Iphigenie in Vienna”. Herbert Seidler sees certain parallels between Grillparzer's treatment of truth...