Ludwig of Bavaria: A Verse Biography and a Play for Single Performer

by Robert Peters

This is a book about beauty, friendship, art, and disease, centered around one driven soul who happened to be a king. With considerable flair, Ludwig II cultivated the esthetic experience and the dream world, and immersed them unabashedly in a nineteenth century ambience. Ludwig's world was a baroque stage where he was the leading actor, as well as director, designer, and producer. Much of his personal behavior he modeled after his namesake Louis XIV of France, the Sun King. In homage, Ludwig saw himself as the Moon King, often exchanging his days for nights, and frequently dressing up as the French monarch. Ludwig's last palace, Herrenchiemsee, unfinished at his death, was a version of Versailles; Ludwig's Hall of Mirrors was even more splendid that its prototype in France. I see Ludwig as an eccentric genius whose ideas were ahead of his time. What nineteenth century monarch so resisted war and greed and bloodshed spawned by it? Or what monarch had the vision and the intelligence to try to realize, via his fantastic palaces and castles, ideas for a society of the future, ideas he explored with Wagner. I hope by publishing the script along with the full version of the poems, some director or actor may wish to present the work.

142 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1986