SOURCE: “Der Arme Spielmann and the Role of Compromise in Grillparzer's Work,” Germanic Review, Vol. 56, No. 4, Fall, 1981, pp. 134-39.

In the following essay, Roe discusses Grillparzer's Der Arme Spielmann, as well as several other plays, in terms of the dramatist's artistic and spiritual development, noting that Spielmann demonstrates a more mature artistic and moral vision.

Grillparzer's Der arme Spielmann has in recent years attracted considerable critical attention, and the debate concerning Jakob's negative or positive qualities shows no sign of ending. Nevertheless, as the titles of the two most recent full studies of Grillparzer's work indicate,¹ there is still a tendency to treat his one major prose-work in isolation from the dramas or, at best, to consider its relevance in an understanding of the author himself. Such biographical links are certainly of considerable interest: the echoes of the Selbstbiographie are only too obvious, whilst the ambivalent attitude of...