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Freytag, Gustav

(Encyclopedia)Freytag, Gustav go͝oˈstäf frīˈtäkh [key], 1816–95, German novelist and playwright. He taught at the Univ. of Breslau and edited the Grenzboten (1848–70). His most successful play, The Journa...

Simon, Neil

(Encyclopedia)Simon, Neil (Marvin Neil Simon), 1927–2018, American playwright, b. the Bronx, New York City. His plays, nearly all of them popular with audiences, if not always with critics, are comedies treating ...

Livius Andronicus

(Encyclopedia)Livius Andronicus lĭˈvēəs ăndrənīˈkəs [key], fl. 3d cent. b.c., Roman poet, a Greek, b. Tarentum (Taranto). He was captured and made a slave at the fall of Tarentum and was freed by his maste...

Tucholsky, Kurt

(Encyclopedia)Tucholsky, Kurt ko͝ort to͞okhôlˈskē [key], 1890–1935, German political satirist and journalist. Ranging over a wide variety of subjects and styles, Tucholsky's pacifist, antifascist writing mar...

Sternheim, Carl

(Encyclopedia)Sternheim, Carl kärl shtĕrnˈhīm [key], 1878–1943, German dramatist. In his successful comedy Die Hose (1911, tr. A Pair of Drawers, 1927) and in his later works he satirized as corrupt the manne...

Courteline, Georges

(Encyclopedia)Courteline, Georges zhôrzh ko͞orˌtəlēnˈ [key], 1858–1929, French writer. His prolific humorous and satiric works include sketches, plays, tales, and novels. Bourgeois attitudes are ridiculed i...

Alamanni, Luigi

(Encyclopedia)Alamanni or Alemanni, Luigi lo͞oēˈjē älämänˈnē, älā– [key], 1495–1556, Italian poet and patriot. He was a friend of Macchiavelli, who may have encouraged his conspiracy (1522) against C...

black humor

(Encyclopedia)black humor, in literature, drama, and film, grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usu...

Coppée, François

(Encyclopedia)Coppée, François fräNswäˈ kôpāˈ [key], 1842–1908, French poet and dramatist. He won fame with the one-act comedy Le Passant (1869, tr. 1881), in which Sarah Bernhardt made her first successf...

Grabbe, Christian Dietrich

(Encyclopedia)Grabbe, Christian Dietrich krĭsˈtēän dēˈtrĭkh gräbˈə [key], 1801–36, German dramatist and journalist. Critical of “Shakespearomania,” Grabbe strove for a national German drama and wrot...