Peter Weiss

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born

November 08, 1916 in Germany

died

May 10, 1982

gender

male

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Peter Ulrich Weiss (November 8, 1916 – May 10, 1982) was a German writer, painter, and artist of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his play Marat/Sade and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance.

Weiss' first art exhibition took place in 1936. His first produced play was Der Turm in 1950. In 1952 he joined the Swedish Experimental Film Studio, where he made films for several years. During this period, he also taught painting at Stockholm's People's University, and illustrated a Swedish edition of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Until the early 1960s, Weiss also wrote prose. His work consists of short and intense novels with Kafkaesque details and feelings, often with autobiographical background. One of the mos...more Peter Ulrich Weiss (November 8, 1916 – May 10, 1982) was a German writer, painter, and artist of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his play Marat/Sade and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance.

Weiss' first art exhibition took place in 1936. His first produced play was Der Turm in 1950. In 1952 he joined the Swedish Experimental Film Studio, where he made films for several years. During this period, he also taught painting at Stockholm's People's University, and illustrated a Swedish edition of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Until the early 1960s, Weiss also wrote prose. His work consists of short and intense novels with Kafkaesque details and feelings, often with autobiographical background. One of the most known films made by Peter Weiss is an experimental one, The Mirage (1959) and the second one - it is very seldom mentioned - is a film Weiss directed in Paris 1960 together with Barbro Boman,a film with the title Play Girls or The Flamboyant Sex (Schwedische Mädchen in Paris or Verlockung in German). The last one was a film about it lately is said in an advertisement "that even Paris was shocked"! Among the short films by Weiss The Studio of Doctor Faust (1956) shows the extremely strong link of Weiss to a German cultural background.

Weiss' best-known work is the play Marat/Sade (1963), first performed in West Berlin in 1964, which brought him widespread international attention. The following year, legendary director Peter Brook staged a famous production in New York City. It studies the power in society through two extreme and extremely different historical persons, Jean-Paul Marat, a brutal hero of the French Revolution, and the Marquis de Sade, for whom sadism was named. In Marat/Sade, Weiss uses a technique which, to quote from the play itself, speaks of the play within a play within itself: "Our play's chief aim has been to take to bits great propositions and their opposites, see how they work, and let them fight it out." The play is considered a classic, and is still performed, although less regularly.

Weiss was honored with the Charles Veillon Award, 1963; the Lessing Prize, 1965; the Heinrich Mann Prize, 1966; the Carl Albert Anderson Prize, 1967; the Thomas Dehler Prize, 1978; the Cologne Literature Prize, 1981; the Bremen Literature Prize, 1982; the De Nios Prize, 1982; the Swedish Theatre Critics Prize, 1982; and the Georg Büchner Prize, 1982.

A translation of Weiss' L'instruction (Die Ermittlung) was performed at London's Young Vic theater by a Rwandan company in November 2007. The production presented a dramatic contrast between the play's view on the Holocaust and the Rwandan actors' own experience with their nation's genocide.(less)

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Books by Peter Weiss

Average rating: 4.01 · 1,173 ratings · 82 reviews · 47 distinct works

	The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade by Peter Weiss, Geoffrey Skelton (Translator), Adrian Mitchell (Adapted by) 4.03 avg rating — 935 ratings — published 1963 — 15 editions	My rating:
	The Investigation by Peter Weiss, Alexander Gross 4.06 avg rating — 104 ratings — published 1964 — 13 editions	My rating:
	The Aesthetics of Resistance, Vol. 1 by Peter Weiss, Joachim Neugroschel (Translator), Fredric Jameson (Foreword by) 4.61 avg rating — 33 ratings — 9 editions	My rating:
	Marat/Sade/ The Investigation / The Shadow of the Body of the Coachman by Peter Weiss, Robert Cohen 4.17 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 1969 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Abschied von den Eltern 3.04 avg rating — 23 ratings — published 1960 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Peter Weiss, Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats: Erläuterungen 3.60 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1995	My rating:
	Trotsky In Exile 4.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 1969 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Holderlin: A Play in Two Acts 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2010	My rating:
	Marat-Sade 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2000	My rating:
	Baseball's All-Time Goats: As Chosen by America's Top Sportswriters 2.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1992	My rating:

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Quotes by Peter Weiss

“Long ago I left heroics to the heroes”
― Peter Weiss, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade

7 people liked it

“We've got rights the right to starve
We've got jobs waiting for work
We're all brothers lousy and dirty
We're all free and equal to die like dogs”
― Peter Weiss, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade

tags: pessimism

3 people liked it

“Every death even the cruelest death
drowns in the total indifference of Nature
Nature herself would watch unmoved
if we destroyed the entire human race
I hate Nature
this passionless spectator this unbreakable iceberg-face
that can bear everything
this goads us to greater and greater acts”
― Peter Weiss, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade

tags: human-nature , marquis-de-sade , nature , revolution , sadism

3 people liked it

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Peter Weiss

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