GRYPHIUS, ANDREAS. - Playwright, Protestant, b. at Glogau on 11 Oct. 1616, d. there on 16 July 1664, author of five tragedies, among them Papinianus, Carolus Stuardus and Cardenio und Celinde, and of some comedies, among them Peter Squentz and Horribilicribrifax, both the one and the other composed almost exclusively on foreign models and distinguished by a bombastic style and an exaggerated predilection for the horrid.

With a profound religious sense, on a rigidly Lutheran background, he nevertheless brought into his work an austere and virile conception of life, though too pessimistic, also at times succeeding in giving order and connection to events and character to his personages: too little to be called, as he was by his contemporaries, the German Shakespeare, enough to be, even for us, the best of his time.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: W. Harring, G. und das Drama der Jesuiten, Halle 1908; W. Flemming, A. G. und die Bühne, ibid. 1921; W. Schieck, Studien zur Lebensanschauung des G., Greifswald 1924; F. Gundolf, A. G., Heidelberg 1927. The most recent bibliography is in J. Körner, Bibliographisches Handbuch des deutschen Schrifttums, Bern 1949, pp. 194-95.

Bruno Vignola

@incollection{ec6_gryphius_andreas, author = {Vignola, Bruno}, title = {Gryphius, andreas}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VI}, pages = {1190}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/gryphius-andreas} }

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Gryphius, Andreas

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