Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Children's Book Week: Max and Moritz



Max and Moritz


Max and Moritz: A Story of Seven Boyish Pranks (original: Max und Moritz – Eine Bubengeschichte in sieben Streichen) is a German language illustrated story in verse. This highly inventive, blackly humorous tale, told entirely in rhymed couplets, was written and illustrated by Wilhelm Busch and published in 1865. It is among the early works of Busch, yet it already featured many substantial, effectually aesthetic and formal regularities, procedures and basic patterns of Busch's later works.[1] Many familiar with comic strip history consider it to have been the direct inspiration for the Katzenjammer Kids and Quick & Flupke. The German title satirizes the German custom of giving a subtitle to the name of dramas in the form of "Ein Drama in ... Akten" (A Drama in ... Acts), which became dictum in colloquial usage for any event with an unpleasant or dramatic course, e.g. "Bundespräsidentenwahl - Drama in drei Akten" (Federal Presidential Elections - Drama in Three Acts).[2]
Cultural significance
Busch's classic tale of the terrible duo (now in the public domain) has since become a proud part of the culture in German-speaking countries. Even today, parents usually read these tales to their not-yet-literate children. To this day in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, a certain familiarity with the story and its rhymes is still presumed, as it is often referenced in mass communication. The two leering faces are synonymous with mischief, and appear almost logo-like in advertising and even graffiti.
During World War 1, the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, named his dog Moritz, giving the name Max to another animal given to his friend.[3][4]
Max and Moritz is the first published original foreign children's book in Japan which was translated into rōmaji by Shinjirō Shibutani and Kaname Oyaizu in 1887 as Wanpaku monogatari ("Naughty stories").[5]
Max and Moritz became the forerunners to the comic strip. The story inspired Rudolph Dirks to create The Katzenjammer Kids.[6]
After World War 2, German-U.S. composer Richard Mohaupt created together with choreographer Alfredo Bortoluzzi the dance burlesque (Tanzburleske) Max und Moritz, which premiered at Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe on December 18, 1949.

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