Ein Fruehlingsopfer: Schauspiel in 3 Aufzügen
- 160 pages
- 6 hours of reading
Eduard von Keyserling Book order
May 14, 1855 – September 28, 1918
Eduard Graf von Keyserling was a Baltic German fiction writer and dramatist, an exponent of literary Impressionism. After initial influences of Naturalism, his later work, particularly novellas and novels after 1902, placed him at the forefront of German literary Impressionism. Keyserling was a subtle and elegant stylist, whose prose is unforgettable for its evocative ambience and 'feel'. His work shares a certain pessimistic kinship with authors like Ivan Turgenev and Anton Chekhov.
- 2022
- 2019
First published on the eve of the First World War, Keyserling's masterpiece offers a vivid portrait of a society on the verge of dissolution. A group of German aristocrats gathers at a seaside village on the Baltic Sea for a summer holiday in the early years of the twentieth century. The characters represent a cross-section of the upper classes of imperial Germany: a philandering baron, his jealous wife, a gallant cavalry officer, the elderly widow of a general, a cynical government official, a lady's companion. Their lives, even on holiday, are regulated by rigid protocol and archaic codes of honour. But their quiet, disciplined world is thrown into disarray by the unexpected presence of Doralice, a young countess who has rebelled against social constraints by escaping from an arranged marriage and running away with a bourgeois artist.