The Last Days of Mankind: The Last Night !!

by Karl Kraus, Michael Russell (Translator)

Until now, there has never been a full, accurate English translation of the epilogue to "The Last Days of Mankind," German playwright Karl Kraus's early twentieth-century satirical play about the First World War. Yet the play's importance and influence is widely acknowledged and celebrated in Europe, for its uncompromising examination of human folly in the face of war and as a unique act of creativity and imagination, opening drama up to new challenges, techniques, and possibilities.

This translation is of the play's verse epilogue, "The Last Night," which is a standalone work, and in many ways a distillation of all the material preceding it. A general flees the battlefield, representing all generals and military leaders. War correspondents trying to interview and photograph a dying man represent all war correspondents. Everything that took place in the main work reappears in this epilogue's verse in a moving and compelling summation.

This translation of "The Last Night" aims to introduce English-speaking readers to Kraus's great play for the first time in one hundred years, and to offer an annotated edition of the text for those who want to use it as a starting point for exploring Kraus's rich, disturbing, and profound world.

Genres: Plays, Fiction, Classics

126 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1918

About the author

Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is considered the first major European satirist since Jonathan Swift. He directed his satire to the press, German culture, and German and Austrian politics.

Reviews

[Corinne · Rating 4 out of 5]

VOICE 2
"We're going have trouble getting out of this shit!" p 82

ANOTHER LOT
"What colours we die for heavens only knows,
Just give us the lot, we'll see how the wind blows!" p89

VOICES FROM BELOW
Splendour, celebration,
Effulgence and flame'
And for a night of annihilation,
Medals, acclaim! p92

ORDERLY 2
"They know what they did..."

THE VOICE OF GOD
"This is not what I wanted." p112

[Claudio Betti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our faith was forbearance your was excess

A great denuciation of war and its reasons. It does not feel the years. It was written for World War I but could have easily been written today. The most beautiful parts are the song of the Lord of Hyenas and the diacourse of the people of Mars.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well we can't compare him to Goethe. That will just go to his head. So I just won't.

[James Klagge · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a recent translation of the epilogue of the massive play/novel/collage called "The Last Days of Mankind" concerning the First World War. Apparently the epilogue had not been translated before. I read and reported on a long but still edited version of TLDoM here: Last Days of Mankind. This epilogue is the first installment of a promised translation of the complete work.
It is much in the same vein as the rest of the work, and therefore very good. This translation is done not by a scholar but by a dramatist and writer. Thus the translation is done from a performer's point of view. (Yet Kraus himself admits the work is unperformable, requiring literally a cast of thousands.) So the translation preserves rhyme and rhythm. That guarantees that the content is sacrificed. I recently read and reviewed Nabokov's translation with commentary of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... Nabokov represents the opposite philosophy of translation. I am actually more interested in Kraus from a scholar's than a performer's perspective, so this is a bit of a disappointment to me.