Talk:August von Kotzebue

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Note: unsourced POV stuff

Besides his plays, Kotzebue wrote several historical works, which, however, are too one-sided and prejudiced to have much value. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.83.249.234 (talk) 06:18, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Article improvement tags

I just tagged this article for improvement, as there are only two inline references, both for trivial statements, and the general tone of the article is confusing and assumes the reader is already familiar with the political situation of the time. It makes several grandiose statements regarding "liberals" that might be anachronistic (or not - I am completely unfamiliar with German history) eldamorie (talk) 21:15, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Connection betwen Kotzebue and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park

I agree the article needs a lot of attention, but I know nothing about Kotzebue myself. However, I do think there needs to be a reference to the extremely important use made by Jane Austen in Mansfield Park (1814) of Lovers' Vows, which is Elizabeth Inchbald's translation (published 1796; performed 1798) of Kotzebue's play Das Kind der Liebe (1780). Austen's clear opinion that the play is immoral, and her intensely clever dramatic use of the perceived immorality of the play within her own narrative, would make a useful paragraph under a heading such as "Contemporary opinions". Also, it would be very valuable if someone who knows about Kotzebue would tidy up the rather confusing and contradictory indications we find in the current version about whether Kotzebue was regarded as a liberal or as a conservative. (I think the current article is trying to say that his dramas were seen as sexually libertine, while his opinions were seen as socially or politically conservative, but that's rather a guess.)--MichaelHalls (talk) 20:51, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. In the introduction to "Lovers' Vows", Mrs Inchbald made clear that her work was not a translation, as she knew no German, but was a free adaptation for the English stage. Hors-la-loi 16:32, 3 December 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hors-la-loi (talk • contribs)

Editorialising in the "Work" section

There was quite a bit of it here. Specifically, I've removed:

"He possessed, as few German playwrights before or since, the unerring instinct for the theatre; and his influence on the technique of the modern drama from Scribe to Sardou and from Bauernfeld to Sudermann is unmistakable.

which is a bit over the top given the shortage of of citations. --Stfg (talk) 20:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:August von Kotzebue/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

The only reference given is Encylopedia Britannica, an edition that is claimed to be in the public domain, and the article apparently incorporated text directly from that source. So, it should probably be rewritten/reorganized. Yksin 01:10, 24 February 2007 (UTC) The article now has another reference, something from an academic journal, but there is nothing in the text of the article to indicate what is EB material and what is from the journal. It needs a person infobox of some sort. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 13:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 13:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 08:35, 29 April 2016 (UTC)