About the work
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's political comedy in five acts remained a fragment — only four acts were worked out, the fifth exists as sketch. The work was composed in 1793 parallel to Der Bürgergeneral and treats the same subject of the French Revolution, but with considerably greater dramatic ambition and more sympathetic portrayal of popular grievances.
Plot
In a Thuringian village the peasants have begun to revolt against the countess because of forgotten rights and levies. The young countess, educated and enlightened, decides to respond not with force but with open conversation and genuine reforms. She is aided by the magister Breme, who mediates between nobility and peasants. Through enlightenment about the old contracts and actual rights the tensions are resolved. The fragment breaks off before reconciliation is complete.
Cultural significance
Die Aufgeregten is Goethe's politically most interesting dramatic fragment and shows a remarkably reform-oriented approach to the Revolution — the countess figure is explicitly conceived as an enlightened ruler who takes legitimate grievances seriously. Thomas Mann called the play in his Goethe essay one of Goethe's most just political utterances. The work was performed in 2004 at the Deutsches Theater Berlin in a completed version.