The Principal source for Grabbe's historical tragedy "Hannibal"

Abstract

It is a recognized fact , despite the contention of one literary critic , that before and during the writing of his historical tragedy, Hannibal, in the years 1834 and 1835, Grabbe consulted several of the most significant German, French and English historical works of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as well as the ancient accounts of Roman history, in his attempt to gain and present in dramatic form an accurate , yet comprehensive view of the history of Hannibal and the Carthaginians from around the time of the Second and Third Punic Wars. In the following investigation, it is my intention to show that the Acciajouli biography of Hannibal, included as a supplement in Plutarch's Lives, in fact became the dramatist's principal source for his tragedy. In the process of my inquiry, I intend to reveal on the one hand what Grabbe owed to his source by way of historical events and historical atmosphere, and, on the other hand, what information he employed in his presentation of historical characters . Finally, I shall consider the question of why the dramatist might have diverged from history and what effects such changes have produced.