Woyzeck

Georg Buchner (1813-37) packed what most would regard as several lifetimes’ worth of experience into his tragically short 23 years. At the time of his death from typhus in 1837, he had written an incendiary revolutionary pamphlet; a dissertation On Cranial Nerves, which led to his appointment as lecturer in comparative anatomy at Zurich; and two of the greatest plays ever written. The first of these, Danton’s Death (1835) was written in five weeks, during Buchner’s flight into Switzerland from probable imprisonment. It is a gripping …