Bond Edward - Spring Awakening

1864

24 July: Emilie Wedekind, ne Kammerer (18401915) gives birth in Hanover, Germany, to the second of her six children: Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Wedekind. Father: Friedrich Wilhelm Wedekind (18161888), doctor of medicine. The parents had just come back from America.

1872

Dr Wedekind purchases Castle Lenzburg near Aarau in Switzerland where the family settles. Frank attends the Gemeindeknabenschule, then the Bezirksschule from 1875, then from 1879 the Kantonsschule in Aarau.

1879

He writes Der Hnseken, a childrens epic for his youngest sister; writes poems and scenes (mostly parodies), in which he acts himself, for the school literary society.

1884

Matriculation. Enrols first at the University of Lausanne to study German philology and French literature. In the autumn, at his fathers insistence, enrols at Munich University to study law. Theatres, concerts, art museums become his principal haunts.

1886

Starts his first play. Meets Michael Georg Conrad and becomes a friend of Karl Henckell. Open quarrel with his father. November 1886 to July 1887: advertising manager of the Maggi soup firm near Zurich.

1887

Contact with the socialist group Young Germany around Gerhart and Carl Hauptmann and John Henry Mackay. Starts to write for the Neue Zricher Zeitung. September: makes his peace with his father.

1888

11 October: sudden death of Dr Wedekind.

1889

MayJuly: in Berlin. Then Munich. Contact with Otto Julius Bierbaum, Oskar Panizza, Hans Freiherr von Gumppenberg. Friendship with Willy Rudinoff and Richard Weinhppel.

1891

To Easter 1891: writes Spring Awakening. December: to Paris, where he stays with interruptions until 1895.

1892

Fascinated by the theatre, ballet, varits and the circus, whose way of life will help him to shape his philosophy. Friendship with Emma Herwegh; probably first contact with Willy Grtor. Begins Lulu plays.

1894

JanuaryJune: in London. Meets Max Dauthendey, Georg Brandes; back in Paris, meets Albert Langen, his future Munich publisher.

1895

Returns to Germany: February in Berlin; summer in Munich. Tries to get his plays performed, without success. Autumn: Lenzburg, then Zurich; gives public readings mainly from Ibsens plays, using the pseudonym Cornelius Minehaha. Starts his best known novel Mine-Haha. Langen publishes Earth-Spirit (Erdgeist), the first of the Lulu plays.

1896

Summer in Munich. Has more contributions than any other author in Langens successful new periodical Simplicissimus.

1897

Contact with Kurt Martens of the Leipzig Literary Society. Readings.

1898

25 February: first performance in Leipzig of Earth-Spirit. Under the pseudonym Heinrich Kammerer, Wedekind plays the part of Dr Schn. The director, Carl Heine, and his wife Beate along with Kurt Martens become lifelong friends. Heine tours Earth-Spirit with his Ibsen Theater: Wedekind is actor and theatre secretary. Back in Munich, Georg Stollberg, director of the Schauspielhaus, employs him as a dramaturg, director and actor. On 29 October, after the Munich premiere of Earth-Spirit, Wedekind is given a hint that he is going to be arrested because of some political poems published in Simplicissimus under the pseudonym Hieronymus Hobs. Flees to Switzerland, then to Paris. Roughs out The Marquis of Keith.

1899

With The Marquis of Keith complete, he hands himself over to the German police in June. Accused of lsemajest and sentenced to seven months imprisonment, a sentence later commuted to confinement in a fortress (Festungshaft), in fact, Knigstein near Leipzig. While Wedekind is still there, The Singer, also known as TheTenor (Der Kammersnger), has its first night in Berlin (10 December).

1900

3 March: back to Munich. Contact with Max Halbe and his literary circle. 28 September: The Love Potion (Der Liebestrank or Fritz Schwigerling) premiered in Zurich.

1901

April: joins the new cabaret The Eleven Executioners (Die Elf Scharfrichter) in Munich, and is the only member not using a pseudonym. 11 October: first night in Berlin of The Marquis of Keith (Der Marquis von Keith).

1902

22 February: first night in Munich of King Nicolo (So ist das Leben or Knig Nicolo).

1904

1 February: first night in Nuremberg of Pandoras Box (Die Bchse der Pandora) the second, more hostilely received of the Lulu plays. 23 March: confiscation of the first published edition. 1905 1 February: first night in Munich of