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Plays and Poems (Studies in Austrian Literature, Culture, and Thought Translation Series)

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Oskar Kokoschka was best known as a German expressionist painter in the early decades of the 20th Century. But he was also authored of a large body of plays, poems, essays, and autobiographical stories. Ably translated into English by Michael Mitchell, Plays And Poems is a collection of all Kokoschka's plays and poetry, plus one short prose passage, and will give an American readership an excellent introduction to a body of work that elemental, intense, hallmarked by ecstatic language, occasionally grotesque imagery, and the author's ideal of a humanity guided by reason, regardless of German history and his own personal experiences of conflict and oppression. Plays And Poems is a highly recommended addition to academic libraries in general, and 20th Century Germanic literature collections in particular.

Although he is best known as an artist, Oskar Kokoschka made important contributions to Expressionist literature as well. His 1907 play "Murderer, Hope of Women" is generally considered to be the first play to be recognized as an Expressionist drama (as opposed to the first one ever written) and his long poem "The Dreaming Boys" is a sort of Expressionist version of "The Drunken Boat." This volume allows you to read both versions of "Murderer" as well as Kokoschka's other dramas. The "Poems" part of the title is a bit disappointing because there aren't very many of them, but certainly seeing all of the plays--several of which are in verse--allows us to see how Expressionism, far from being a stand-alone, German-language thing, helped nurture Dadaism which in turn gave birth to Surrealism. There are definite surreal moments in certain of the plays, although the final work, an historical drama "Commenus" that was several decades in the writing, comes down at last on the side of emotion (Expressionism) as opposed to fancy. This is an important translation that deserves a wider circulation.