Works
His most famous work was Frühlings Erwachen or Spring Awakening, which was loosely adapted in 2006 into the hit Broadway musical of the same name. It was not produced for almost twenty years as it unfolds in a bold, shocking, and freely sexual manner, challenging views on how to treat puberty and the repressive german society he wrote it in. "Spring Awakening, a fin de siècle play dealing frankly and outrageously with youth culture and the issues of masturbation, rape, suicide, abortion, homosexuality, and mental and physical child abuse, was bound to ignite outrage in certain quarters in its time" (Journey). “The 'Lulu' plays, Earth Spirit (1895) and Pandora's Box (1904), while no less striking in their depiction of a society riven by the demands of lust and greed, are somewhat more ambiguous over the issue of sexuality” (Banham). Encyclopedia Brittannica also lists Wedekind’s other plays as including “Der Kammersänger (1899; The Court Singer, also translated as The Tenor and The Singer), Der Marquis von Keith (1900; The Marquis of Keith), König Nicolo oder So ist das Leben (1901; Such Is Life), Hidalla (1904), and Franziska (1912; Eng. trans. Franziska). He also wrote poetry, novels, songs, and essays. His diary was posthumously published as Die Tagebücher: ein erotisches Leben (1986; Diary of an Erotic Life).”