SOURCE: Korb, Richard Alan. “Der Hofmeister: Lenz's Sex Comedy.” In Space to Act: The Theater of J. M. R. Lenz, edited by Alan C. Leidner and Helga S. Madland, pp. 25-34. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1993.

In the following essay, Korb discusses how Lenz used parody and satire in Der Hofmeister to deal with taboo sexual topics.

Sexuality and the question of genre may seem to be unlikely bedmates—unless we are considering a play in which a wife tries to make her husband jealous by chasing after the young gentleman who is supposed to marry her daughter, a play in which a young woman strips a young man, who in turn climbs into the window of another young woman, who in turn finds favor with a fine gentleman before marrying the man who climbed into her window and dishonored her. To this chain of events, add a...