Franz Grillparzer was born in Vienna, Austria. His father, the advocate E. J. Grillparzer, was a severe pedant and a staunch upholder of the liberal traditions of the reign of Joseph II. E. J. Grillparzer was an unsuccessful lawyer

For his historical tragedy King Ottokar's Fortune and End (German: König Ottokars Glück und Ende, written 1823, but owing to difficulties with the censor, not performed until February 19, 1825),

In 1836, Grillparzer paid a visit to Paris and London, in 1843 to Athens and Constantinople. Then came the Revolution which struck off the intellectual fetters under which Grillparzer

• He is honoured in Austria with a pastry, the Grillparzer Torte.
• Outside Austria, the modern American reader is perhaps most familiar with Grillparzer via

From 1807 to 1809, Grillparzer wrote a long tragedy in iambics, Blanca von Castilien, modeled on Schiller's Don Carlos. He also produced the dramatic fragments Spartacus and Alfred der Grosse (1809).
When Grillparzer began to write, the German stage was

Still, during this time, Grillparzer completed two of his greatest dramas, Waves of the Sea and of Love (German: Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen, 1831) and The Dream, a Life (Der Traum ein Leben [de], 1834). Waves of the Sea and of Love dramatizes the story of

Grillparzer was an important figure in the Viennese theater of the 1840s when his greatest dramatic works were produced. Together with Hebbel, he rates as the most influential dramatist of the