The Intermedial Dialogue: Refigurations of Classical Painting in Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening

Abstract

This study focuses on the amalgamation of multiple epochs which rejuvenates the purpose of intermediality. It is based on classical artworks selected from different periods, presented in a modern play that can reignite the concept of sexual awakening. Frank Wedekind’s popular modern drama Spring Awakening (1891) infuses multiple artworks to envision the fragility of innocence among children; youngsters being exposed to sexual adolescent temptations, social taboos, and desires that led to tragic events due to the demands of a moral conventional society. We will mainly focus on Wedekind’s choice of classical paintings in his play Spring Awakening, which conveys the nuanced concept of scopophilia, sexual naivety, and the power of nudity among young pupils in the late 19th century. Why were these classical paintings presented in the play? What were the alluding reasons? Such questions were left unexamined. Thus, we will explore three selected paintings to unravel the depths of Wedekind’s subtle interpretations regarding the inevitability of human instinctiveness among the young characters. First, we will study the initial inspiration of Edward Burne-Jone’s The Blessed Damozel (1898) based on Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem of the same name to explore the multitude of love and its dynamics in both the play and the painting. Second, we will scrutinise the concept of women’s vulnerability by depicting the context behind the painting Susanna and The Elders – a legacy from Mademoiselle Angelique, and lastly, we will decipher the characteristics of the goddess, Venus, in Peter Paul Rubens’ Venus and Adonis (1634-1636) which was inspired by the mythological characters in Ovid’s Metamorphosis correlated with Frank’s characters and plot in the play. Hence, we will vicariously live through three paintings with its given background, to understand why Frank Wedekind’s applied it in his play Spring Awakening.