SOURCE: "Raimund's Der Verschwender: The Illusion of Freedom," in The German Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 2, Spring, 1985, pp. 184-93.

In the following essay, Crockett investigates Raimund's use of fate in Der Verschwender, arguing that the play illustrates the workings of deterministic forces in a manner similar to that of his earlier magic plays.

It has been a popular contention in Raimund scholarship that Der Verschwender, the author's last play and one of his most successful ones, represents a break with traditional Baroque determinism. While in earlier dramas a hierarchy of supernatural beings intervened repeatedly to rescue mortal protagonists from their own errors and guarantee them thereby a safe, marionette-like existence, Der Verschwender is said to be the play in which Raimund cuts the strings. Whereas hosts of good and evil spirits pull the mortals of prior comedies in opposite directions while using them as pawns in their own private power...