Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hertel, Jeffrey

Titel

"Von Nun an ist der Staat zugleich die höchste Poesie." Satirizing the Viennese Märzrevolution

Ist Teil von

• The Germanic review, 2020-10, Vol.95 (4), p.295-314

Ort / Verlag

Washington: Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Quelle

Taylor & Francis:Master (3349 titles)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This article explores the way in which two dramatic satires criticized the shortcomings of the Viennese Märzrevolution. As opposed to the typically "partisan" nature of a satire that attacks either revolutionaries or reactionaries, Johann Nestroy's Freiheit in Krähwinkel (1848) and Eduard von Bauernfeld's Die Republik der Thiere (1848) both turn their satiric barbs against all political positions. To accomplish this, they use satiric popular culture to create a lowbrow version of "aesthetic education," attacking the political naiveté of liberal revolutionaries and the insidious scheming of reactionaries. Bauernfeld's drama uses an "aesthetic state" run by animals to highlight the general political ignorance of the revolutionary period, while Nestroy utilizes the intrigues of a wily newspaper agent to lambast both reaction and revolution. Ultimately, these two dramas showcase the power of satire to clear the discursive ground as a propaedeutic for a more reasoned future, acting thusly in the vein of idealist aesthetics even as they attack political idealism for its real failures.