Marginal notes on a playwright’s own comedy
What the Work Is
Glossen zu Don Juan is a short prose text by the Swiss writer Max Frisch, first published in 1960. It belongs to the body of commentary Frisch wrote around his own stage work Don Juan oder Die Liebe zur Geometrie — a comedy in five acts, written in 1952/53 and later revised in 1961 — and it is catalogued as a work of 1960. The title identifies it as a set of Glossen: glosses, or marginal notes, on the Don Juan material.
What the Book Is About
The text is a set of glosses — explanatory and reflective notes — on the Don Juan figure and on Frisch’s own dramatic treatment of it. Rather than a free-standing essay on the Don Juan legend in general, it stands in direct relation to his comedy Don Juan oder Die Liebe zur Geometrie, whose title already signals its central inversion: this Don Juan is drawn not to women but to geometry. The glosses accompany and comment on that conception.
Key Ideas and Themes
The one idea the sources attach firmly to this work is the pairing named in the title of the comedy it glosses: Don Juan and the love of geometry. Frisch’s Don Juan is defined by an intellectual passion — geometry — set against the legendary figure’s reputation as a seducer. The glosses take up this material as commentary rather than as narrative.
Structure and Approach
The work is a set of glosses, that is, notes or annotations rather than a continuous treatise or story. The sources identify it by title and year and place it among Frisch’s writings, but they do not describe its internal organisation, so nothing further about its structure can be stated with certainty.
Significance and Influence
The sources record Glossen zu Don Juan as a distinct title among Frisch’s writings, first published in 1960, but they do not describe its reception or influence. It is best understood as a companion piece to Frisch’s Don Juan comedy — a gloss on his own dramatic reworking of the legend.
In the authorised Gesammelte Werke in zeitlicher Folge, edited by Hans Mayer with the collaboration of Walter Schmitz, Glossen zu Don Juan is not listed as a separate title. The volume covering 1949–1956 contains, in Band III,1 (05), Frisch’s comedy Don Juan oder Die Liebe zur Geometrie. Komödie in fünf Akten (1952/53. 1961) at page 95, followed by Nachträgliches zu „Don Juan“ (1953) at page 168. The glosses are therefore not among the titles recorded in the authorised edition’s listing.
The Editorial Context
The Gesammelte Werke in zeitlicher Folge appeared in several variants, with book and paperback editions textually identical: the Suhrkamp edition of 1976 in six linen-bound volumes numbered in Roman numerals, and a paperback edition of 12 part-volumes in a slipcase (= werkausgabe edition suhrkamp), numbered both in combined Roman-Arabic form (e.g. “Band VI,2”) and in Arabic numbers (e.g. “wa 12”). In 1986, for Frisch’s 75th birthday, a separately obtainable supplementary volume appeared along with the Gesammelte Werke in zeitlicher Folge. Jubiläumsausgabe in sieben Bänden 1931–1985, edited by Hans Mayer with the collaboration of Walter Schmitz and with the assistance of Johann S. Koch (volume seven), published by Suhrkamp in Frankfurt am Main, Roman-numered, and a paperback edition in 7 volumes (= suhrkamp taschenbuch st 1401–1407), Arabic-numered. Titles in square brackets are supplied by the editors.
The Author
Max Rudolf Frisch was born on 15 May 1911 in Zürich and died on 4 April 1991 in the same city. He was a Swiss writer and architect. With stage works such as Biedermann und die Brandstifter or Andorra, as well as with his three great novels Stiller, Homo faber and Mein Name sei Gantenbein, Frisch reached a broad public and found entry into the school canon. Beyond that he published radio plays, stories and smaller prose texts as well as two literary diaries covering the periods 1946 to 1949 and 1966 to 1971. The young Max Frisch felt bourgeois and artistic existence to be irreconcilable and was for a long time uncertain which life plan he should choose.
Other Prose Writings of the Same Period
Among the Kleinen Prosaschriften (1957–1963) in Band IV,1 (07) are Rede an junge Lehrer, held on the occasion of a diploma ceremony (1957); Taschenbücher (1957); a Festrede zum Nationalfeiertag am 1. August 1957; Varlin (1958); Emigranten. Rede zur Verleihung des Georg-Büchner-Preises 1958; Öffentlichkeit als Partner (1958); Peter Suhrkamp (1959); Die Schweiz ist ein Land ohne Utopie (1960); an answer to the survey Wie soll man neue Theater bauen? (1960); Unsere Gier nach Geschichten (1960); Nachruf auf Albin Zollinger, den Dichter und Landsmann, nach zwanzig Jahren (1961); and an Exposé zum Wettbewerb für einen Neubau des Schauspielhauses Zürich (1963).
Other Glossen
The word Glosse appears elsewhere in Frisch’s titles: Cum grano salis. Eine kleine Glosse zur schweizerischen Architektur (1953), placed among the Kleinen Prosaschriften (1951–1954) in Band III,1 (05).
Works Outside the Collected Edition
A further section of the list of Frisch’s writings records works that were not taken into the Gesammelten Werke or that appeared later than 1985 or posthumously. Among those published during Frisch’s lifetime is Antwort aus der Stille. Erzählung (Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1937), and Schweiz ohne Armee? Ein Palaver (Limmat, Zürich 1989). Posthumous publications include Jetzt ist Sehenszeit. Briefe, Notate, Dokumente 1943–1963, edited on behalf of the Max Frisch-Stiftung by Julian Schütt (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1998); the Briefwechsel with Friedrich Dürrenmatt, edited by Peter Rüedi (Diogenes, Zürich 1998); the Briefwechsel 1964–1983 with Uwe Johnson, edited by Eberhard Fahlke (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1999); Im übrigen bin ich immer völlig allein. Briefwechsel mit der Mutter 1933, Berichte von der Eishockey-Weltmeisterschaft in Prag, Reisefeuilletons, edited by Walter Obschlager (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2000); Journalistische Arbeiten 1931–1939, edited by Carsten Niemann with the collaboration of Walter Obschlager (Niedersächsisches Staatstheater, Hannover 2001); Schwarzes Quadrat. Zwei Poetikvorlesungen, edited by Daniel de Vin with the assistance of Walter Obschlager, with an afterword by Peter Bichsel (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2008); Entwürfe zu einem dritten Tagebuch, edited and with an afterword by Peter von Matt (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2010); the Briefwechsel 1984–1990 with Helen Wolff, in Sinn und Form 1/2012, pp. 102–128, introduced by Marion Detjen’s Spiritual Companionship. Max Frisch und Helen Wolff (ibid., pp. 91–101); Aus dem Berliner Journal, edited by Thomas Strässle with the assistance of Margit Unser (Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2014); and Ignoranz als Staatsschutz?, edited by David Gugerli and Hannes Mangold (Suhrkamp, Berlin 2015). Also recorded is Licht- und Schattenseiten der modernen Technik. Deutscher Aufsatz, Maturitätsprüfung 1930, held in the Staatsarchiv des Kantons Zürich.
