SOURCE: “Death's Jest Book and the German Contribution,” in Studia Neophilologica, Vol. 39, No. 1, 1967, pp. 15-37.

In the following essay, Harrex assesses the influence of the German dramatic tradition on Death's Jest Book.

I

Literary and Philosophical Influence in Death's Jest Book

Thomas Lovell Beddoes travelled to Germany in 1825 to study medicine, and although he had already begun to learn the language and read it a little before leaving England,¹ it was in Germany itself that he made his real discoveries in the literature, reading widely and critically among German writers to such an extent that by July 1830 he was able to express surprise at not having discovered sooner the work of Heinrich von Kleist, since, he writes to Kelsall, “I really believed I was acquainted with everything worth reading in German belles lettres, from the Niebelungenlied down to Tiecks last novel”. References to German authors and their works...