From Pariah to Baboon: Ludwig Robert’s Parody of Michael Beer’s Paria

Michael Beer’s successful 1823 play Der Paria is famous as an early complaint against the status of Jews as second-rate citizens. As such, it is fundamental to the conception of Jews as pariahs, best known through the writings of Hannah Arendt. Its long reception history has overlooked an important source, that is now uncovered for the first time in a hundred years. Beer’s play was parodied by Ludwig Robert with Der Pavian. Both authors were scions of Berlin’s Jewish elite, and among the first authors of Jewish descent to write in German. Robert’s parody shows why he did not share in the general enthusiasm about Der Paria, how the choice of the parodic genre was a self-referential critique, and how form and content of the parody together intervened in Beer’s use of the genre of Trauerspiel. Thus, it contributes to our understanding of the diverse strategies and self-perceptions of upper-class Berlin Jews, confronted with the limits of their pioneering the Jewish integration into non-Jewish society, showing the role of theater as a means of negotiating contemporary social problems both in private and publicly, stressing the difficult presence of Jews in the German public sphere.