ANZENGRUBER, LUDWIG

ANZENGRUBER, LUDWIG. - Dramatic poet and storyteller, born in Vienna on 29 Nov. 1839, died there on 10 Dec. 1889. With the peasant drama *Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld*, published in 1870, a typical expression of the Austrian *Kulturkampf*, the author immediately revealed the full measure of his art. Though the protagonist’s inner struggle between duty and love may at times seem conventional and the polemics against the Church and the Papacy are entirely outdated, the drama as a whole is alive, and some secondary figures are drawn with sure psychological insight. The author’s subsequent dramas likewise draw on the same politico-moral tendencies; to the anticlerical controversy is added the social question. In the drama *Das vierte Gebot* (1878), the naturalism of the 1890s would later see some of its themes anticipated. In 1876 the author turned to narrative, publishing the novella *Der Schandfleck* and, in 1883, the naturalistic novel *Der Sternsteinhof*.