''The Soldiers'' (German: Die Soldaten) is a 1776 Tragicomedy play by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. The play was influenced by the works of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

and can be attributed to the Sturm und Drang literary movement. The events of the play take place in "French

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...

" and centre around a girl who courts an officer. After he breaks off their relationship, she is branded as a whore by society.

Plot

Marie Wesener, the daughter of a merchant, begins a romantic relationship with the young Officer Desportes, despite being engaged to a cloth dealer called Stolzius. Marie's father initially objects to this relationship, until he realises that Marie's affair with the officer opens up opportunities for social advancement. Thus, he helps Marie to break her engagement with Stolzius by means of a letter, However, Marie's relationship with the young officer is only a short affair. Another soldier named Mary, a friend of Desportes, starts courting Marie soon after. Marie meets the young Count de la Roche, and his mother takes Marie into her care, to protect her from prosecution. Marie becomes the countess' companion, under the condition that she does not meet with any man for the duration of a year. However, she still meets with Mary, is caught by the countess and subsequently runs away. Mary, who wanted to marry Marie, doesn't want anything to do with her anymore either, because he learns she has flirted with the young count. Marie sets off in search of Desportes, but he has her stopped by a hunter with nefarious intentions. When Desportes admits this in the presence of Stolzius, Stolzius poisons him. Mary seeks to avenge his dead friend, but Stolzius has already poisioned himself, committing suicide. Whilst he dies he reproaches the soldiery for seducing young girls and forcing them to be become societal outcasts. Marie's father has meanwhile also made his way to Desportes. He finds his starving daughter begging on the street; at first he does not recognise her. They embrace one another. In the final scene of the play the countess and a colonel discuss the events that have occurred. They see the unmarried soldiery as a "monster", to which a girl must be occasionally sacrified as a means of protecting the others. They conclude that in order to prevent this sacrifice a "planting school of soldiers' wives" would have to be founded, in which women would be available to soldiers in a martyr-like fashion. This system would also always provide the prince with new soldiers - the children from these relationships.

Background

As with many of Lenz' works, in ''The Soldiers'' he highlights the contradiction between the demands of the

Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

toward autonomy and freedom of personal development and the constraints of estate-based society, using this as a way to criticise contemporary German society. In ''The Soldiers'' he especially criticises the unscrupulous behaviour of soldiers, especially officers, towards daughters of middle-class origins. However, Lenz does not present this as solely the fault of the "pleasure-seeking" soldiers themselves; Marie and her father are also partly to blame for the events of the play; the allow themselves to be blinded by the glamour of the soldiers' uniforms due to their social ambitions. The play was not performed until nearly one hundred years after its publication; it was first staged in 1863 by E. v. Bauernfeld at the Hoftheather in Vienna (now known as the

Burgtheater The Burgtheater (literally:"Castle Theater" but alternatively translated as "(Imperial) Court Theater"), originally known as '' K.K. Theater an der Burg'', then until 1918 as the ''K.K. Hofburgtheater'', is the national theater of Austria in Vi ...

Adaptations

* ''The Soldiers'' served as an inspiration for Georg Büchner's Woyzeck, although his play is set in a much lower social class * In 1930 Manfred Gurlitt set the drama to music as an opera under the title ''Soldaten'' ("Soldiers" in English) * Between 1958 and 1964 Bernd Alois Zimmermann also set the drama to music. The opera " Die Soldaten" premiered in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

on 15 February 1965.

References

;Sources * {{DEFAULTSORT:Soldiers 1776 plays German-language plays Plays adapted into operas Tragicomedy plays Sturm und Drang Works set in Flanders Plays by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz