Raimund, Ferdinand [key], 1790–1836, Austrian actor and dramatist. From 1817 he was a popular comedian in Vienna, and in 1823 he began to produce his own plays. Raimund wrote fine comedies of Viennese life, among them Der Bauer als Millionär [the peasant millionaire] (1826), Der Verschwender (1833, tr. The Spendthrift, 1949), and Der Alpenkönig und der Menschenfeind (1828, tr. The King of the Alps, 1850). Blending humor with pathos, these plays raised the Viennese folk comedy to a high literary level. Subject to depression, Raimund shot himself at a time when his public favor had temporarily ebbed.
See study by D. Prohaska (1973).
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