Tragedies of sex by Frank Wedekind
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"Tragedies of sex" by Frank Wedekind is a collection of plays written in the late 19th and early 20th century. Gathering Spring’s Awakening, Earth-Spirit, Pandora’s Box, and Damnation!, it confronts sexual desire, repression, and bourgeois hypocrisy with frank, unsettling drama. The pieces focus on volatile youth and predatory or compromised adults—most notably the schoolchildren Melchior, Wendla, and Moritz, and the magnetic Lulu—to expose how authority and morality deform private life. The opening
of the volume frames the author as an avant-garde provocateur and precursor to Expressionism, then launches into the first stretch of Spring’s Awakening. We meet Wendla, chafing at being forced into adult decorum; schoolboys Melchior and Moritz, who debate sex and struggle under academic pressure; and girls who reveal domestic abuse, especially Martha. Moritz secretly checks the promotion lists and, provisionally passed, swings from relief to dread. In the woods, Melchior and Wendla spar over charity and morality before a disturbing moment in which she asks to be struck and he loses control. Subsequent scenes deepen the sexual awakening and confusion: Melchior’s candid discussions with Moritz (and his tolerant mother), Wendla’s mother’s evasions about where babies come from, Hansy’s furtive self-gratification, and a charged hayloft encounter between Melchior and Wendla. A letter shows Melchior’s mother refusing to fund Moritz’s escape, urging fortitude; Wendla drifts through the garden in dazed, secretive joy; and Moritz, by the river at dusk, edges toward despair. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Wedekind, Frank, 1864-1918 |
|---|---|
| Translator | Eliot, Samuel A. (Samuel Atkins), 1893-1984 |
| LoC No. | 23009570 |
| Title | Tragedies of sex |
| Original Publication | New York: Boni and Liveright, 1923. |
| Contents | Spring's awakening (Frühlings erwachen) -- Earth-spirit (Erdgeist) -- Pandora's box (Die büchse der Pandora) -- Damnation! (Tod und teufel). |
| Credits | Terry Jeffress, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures |
| Subject | Tragedies (Drama) |
| Subject | German drama -- Translations into English |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 76872 |
| Release Date | Sep 13, 2025 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 480 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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