Talk:Spring Awakening (play)

Minor characters
Is there definitive evidence that all of these characters are in the original play? The names of the minor characters seem to be strange anglicizings, and just a bit odd. Rcharman 01:02, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Issue of consent
The artical states:

'Wendla Bergmann: A girl, who turns 14 at the beginning of the play. In the second act of the play, she is raped by Melchior without the knowledge of reproduction.'

I would question the use of the term 'raped'. Surely the point of that scene between Wendla and and Melchior is that the sex has been consented to. The point of the play is that the younger characters are doing what comes natural to them not what society dictates. (Scribe) Llewscribe01 (talk) 15:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)


 * ...which certainly makes more sense than "she is raped by Melchior without the knowledge of reproduction" -- whatever that means. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.190.207.35 (talk) 02:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Wendla is at that point unaware of the consequences of her actions. Melchior is the only character who is fully aware of sexual intercourse in the play and is shown to be the most mature in this respect. I doubt consent ever came into the question: Wendla herself is not shown to have given it. How could she? She is an innocent child just as eager as the other children to explore their bodies. This might help: http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/springawakening/themes.html The Missing Piece (talk) 01:36, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I just want to jump in and point out, first of all, (in reference to the rape discussion) that the character of Melchior refers to himself as having raped Wendla (In Act 3 Scene 4). In regards to some other things on this page, I'm confused as to what exactly the sort of criteria is supposed to be here for which characters get on the character list and which don't? There seem to be some characters (Lammermeier comes to mind) that seem to be of the same level of importance (or unimportance as the case may be) as some characters that are listed, and yet they're not there. Also, in the comparison of the masturbation scenes in the Differences section, I'm wondering if there is not at least some metaphorical referencing to killing the figure in the play as well? Speaking of that section, there are also some other things that might be worth mentioning -- such as the sexual abuse of Martha and Ilse (going off of the song "The Dark I Know Well" in the musical) vs. no mentioned parental abuse of Ilse and no implied (as far as I can tell) sexual abuse of Martha in the play. I'm not confident enough about what I'm doing to touch any of this myself, but I wanted to put these thoughts out there if someone else might want to consider them. 72.131.49.119 (talk) 04:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the "rape" to "has sex with". It is not at all clear whether it is a rape or not. It could easily be played either way. Melchior's identification later in the play is motivated dramatically, so isn't evidence. If we had Wedekind describing it as such, then that's a different matter. DionysosProteus (talk) 04:33, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Since there has been a little more back and forth on this issue, I've tried to insert some neutral language that leaves both possibilities open. It really seems that, whatever the author's intentions, the audience interpretation of this scene will be determined by the way it is acted. "The script leaves ambiguous whether or not this encounter is consensual - a performance could produce either interpretation." Adam (talk) 00:40, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * In the original playbook it is NOT consensual. While the word "rape" is not used, the words she says to him relay the action, from page 88-- Wendla- "Don't kiss me, Melchior!——Don't kiss me!" Melchior (then says)——"Your heart——I hear beating——" then, Wendla: "People love——when they kiss——Don't, don't!"

-Melchior;
 * Oh, believe me, there's no such thing as love! Everything is selfishness, everything is egotism!——I love you as little as you love me.

-Wendla;
 * Don't——don't, Melchior!——

-Melchior;
 * Wendla!

-Wendla;
 * Oh, Melchior!——Don't, don't—— (end of scene)

This, after her mother tells her that only love creates babies, after one is married, of course. She doesn't understand when her mother tells her she is pregnant, because she says she never loved anyone but her mother. "How can that be?" Anyway, he feels guilty later that he was the cause of her death. Even saying "they hate me for taking their liberty." If you go by the plays, scenes have been modified, toned-down, so to speak. If you're going on the recent musical version, many liberties and modifications where taken. This article is about his play book, the original. 74.83.35.137 (talk) 21:21, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Just looked at the original (http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/fruhlings-erwachen-2611/10) and I have to agree. Although Melchior doesn't really understand yet that what he's doing is wrong, and expresses profound remorse once he does, it's definitely non-consensual. (Note that the question of consent is not integral to the course of the drama--it has no effect one way or the other on what follows.) NeoAdamite (talk) 17:24, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It is clearly not Rape. The Principle Nulla poena sine lege - that is the backbone of civilisation - means, an act in imperial Germany is judged by the law of imperial Germany, not by 2010s common law. Bringing up the theory of sexual consent in a work set in a place and time there there is no such thing doesn't make sence. If you are interested in the law of imperial germany (somewhat different from current law). Neither the crime of rape ("Violently forced extreamartial sexual intercourse"), nor defilation ("Extramarital sexual intercourse with a unconcoius woman") nor sodomy ("Penetrating sexual act of a man with a girl under 14, another man or an animal") nor seduction ("defloration of a honorable girl under 16 by a man over 21 against her parents will without marrying her later") would apply here. If we would convivt people for things that were legal in the past, society would collapse. Even the Taliban pointed out they forgive their enemies. Note, that in Swizerland, a helicopter mother's moral panic agains the book became a major legal scandal, so the book certainly reclaimed its relevance. --91.56.195.225 (talk) 12:00, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Translation of the title
I am at a loss to understand why this page is called "Spring Awakening." The name of the original German play is "Spring's Awakening." I am not an experienced user of this site, so I don't know how to go about making such a major correction, but I am a former Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst fellow who spent 1973-74 in Munich, in part researching Wedekind at the Wedekind Archiv (I hoped to write a dissertation on him), my German was excellent and is still pretty decent, and I can assure you that the title of the play, Frühlings Erwachen, means Spring's Awakening. The phrase, "more accurately," is mine, replacing "sometimes," but the title of the page itself should be changed. When I have the time, perhaps I'll compare the German, which I have, with the synopsis here, but obviously that would be a major undertaking. Simplizissimus (talk) 05:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The Wikipedia policy I understand is to use the most common title, not the most correct. Spring Awakening is the standard English rendering. DionysosProteus (talk) 01:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I would have to say that Spring's Awakening is the most correct, and the most common. Until the musical came out, Spring's Awakening was the most commonly used title, the most accurately translated, as well as the one used in the Off-Broadway productions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.163.201.1 (talk) 14:14, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Spring Awakening is by far the more common title. It has nothing to do with the piss-poor musical. Have a look at a sample of history of theatre textbooks and translations of the play. DionysosProteus (talk) 04:32, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * "Spring Awakening" is correct. Even on the German Wiki. Perhaps you're thinking of the subtitle "A children's tragedy" (Eine Kindertragödie)? 74.83.35.137 (talk) 21:45, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The Edward Bond translation (given a major Off-Broadway production in 1978) uses Spring Awakening. NeoAdamite (talk) 17:03, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Photograph
There is a photo of Peter Lorre as Moritz and Lotte Lenya as Iise in a 1929 Berlin production of the play. M Bateman-Graham 203.171.196.129 (talk) 10:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)