A Man of Our Time

Abstract

Büchner is an author whose works still feel unquestionably modern, but this very quality constitutes the biggest difficulty in describing his influence on other modern writers. In a gaffe, now famous in German theatre history, which illustrates this problem, a French critic of Jean Vilar’s 1953 production of Danton criticises its author, evidently thinking the work to be brand new, for not taking account of the then most recent research into the French Revolution.¹