SOURCE: “Ambition,” in Grillparzer: A Critical Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 1972, pp. 84-131.

In the following excerpt, Yates offers detailed discussions of Grillparzer's Das Goldene Vlies, Köning Ottokar's Glück und Ende, and Der Traum ein Leben, focusing on characterization and pointing out that achievement is often linked with the fulfillment of duty in Grillparzer's plays.

Das Goldene Vlies

In the preface to Das Goldene Vlies which Grillparzer composed in November 1821, he wrote that it was impossible for a writer to escape the spirit of his own age; that in his age writers too rapidly lost that ‘certain innocence of mind’ that was essential for creative work, and turned to reflection, with the result that in the search for deeper motivation and ‘higher guiding principles’ they fell victim to formlessness; and that this point applied to himself in respect of his trilogy. A significant indication of the uncharacteristically...