Editing Kaspar Hauser (section)

== Cultural references ==

=== Literature ===
A passing reference to Hauser is made in [[Herman Melville]]'s novella ''[[Billy Budd]]''. He is presented as an example of a person with a primitive, yet virtuous, personality.<ref>{{cite wikisource|author-last=Melville|author-first=Herman|title=Billy Budd|chapter=Chapter 2|quote= To any stray inheritor of these primitive qualities found, like Caspar Hauser, wandering dazed in any Christian capital of our time, the good-natured poet's famous invocation, near two thousand years ago, of the good rustic out of his latitude in the Rome of the Cesars, still appropriately holds:-'Honest and poor, faithful in word and thought,/What has thee, Fabian, to the city brought?'}}</ref>

In 1913, [[Georg Trakl]] wrote the poem ''"Kaspar Hauser Lied"'' ("Kaspar Hauser Song").<ref>{{cite web|title=Kaspar Hauser Lied|url=https://sites.google.com/site/germanliterature/20th-century/trakl/kaspar-hauser-lied|website=German Literature|access-date=18 April 2018}}</ref> It alludes to the works by Verlaine and Wassermann, and has been called the "most striking" expression of a literary trope in which Kaspar Hauser "stood for the natural, poetic genius lost in a strange world, lacking a home, a sense of origin and attachment, and fearing a violent but uncertain future."<ref name="Horton2007">{{cite magazine|last1=Horton|first1=Scott|title=A Note on Trakl's 'Song of Kaspar Hauser'|magazine=Harper's|date=28 July 2007|access-date=18 April 2018 |url=https://harpers.org/blog/2007/07/a-note-on-trakls-song-of-kaspar-hauser/}}</ref> The philosopher [[Martin Heidegger]] cited this poem in his essay on poetry and language, ''Unterwegs zur Sprache''.<ref name="Heidegger1975">{{cite book|last=Heidegger|first=Martin|title=Unterwegs zur Sprache|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xCsTAQAAMAAJ&q=kaspar+hauser+lied|year=1975|series=Gesamtausgabe |volume = 12 |publisher=Vittorio Klosterman|isbn=9783465027645}}</ref>

[[Kaspar (play) | Kaspar]], a play written by Austrian playwright [[Peter Handke]] and published in 1967 depicts "the foundling Kaspar Hauser as a near-speechless innocent destroyed by society’s attempts to impose on him its language and its own rational values."<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica'', Biography of Peter Handke (Austrian Writer)</ref>

In 1994, the English poet [[David Constantine]] explored the story and its personae in ''Caspar Hauser: A Poem in Nine Cantos''.<ref>Reprinted in D. Constantine, ''Collected Poems'' (Tarset, Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books, 2004), pp. 143–216.</ref>

Canadian artist [[Diane Obomsawin]] tells the story of Kaspar Hauser in her 2007 [[graphic novel]] ''Kaspar''; in 2012 it was adapted into the animated short film ''[[Kaspar (film)|Kaspar]]''.<ref>Alex Tigchelaar, [https://xtramagazine.com/culture/jaime-diane-obomsawin-58774 "J’aime Diane Obomsawin"]. ''[[Xtra Magazine]]'', March 5, 2014.</ref>

=== Film and television ===
[[Michael Landon]] played Casper Hauser in the episode "The Mystery of Caspar Hauser" of the television series ''[[Telephone Time]]'' in 1956.<ref>{{cite book |title=Der Findling: Kaspar Hauser in der Literatur |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ngaAAAAYAAJ&q=michael+landon |first=Ulrich |last=Struve |year=1992 |page=250 |publisher=Metzler Verlag|isbn = 9783476007865}}</ref>

[[Werner Herzog]]'s 1974 film ''[[The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser]]'' dramatizes Hauser's story. [[Bruno S.]], who played the part of Hauser, was an untrained actor whose childhood was marked by physical abuse and stays in mental institutions; Herzog has remarked that he considers him similar to Hauser.<ref>{{cite web |title=Werner Herzog Walker dialogue with Roger Ebert |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQj3XuRkx-s |website=YouTube |publisher=[[Walker Art Center]] |language=en |format=video |date=April 28, 2020}}</ref> The film's German title is ''Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle'', which Herzog also used as the title of his [[Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir|2022 memoir]]. 

Galician filmmaker Alberto Gracia made an avant-garde version of Hauser's life in ''O quinto evanxeo de Gaspar Hauser'' (2013).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Alberto Gracia |url=https://bafici.org/director/alberto-gracia/ |website=BAFICI 25}}</ref>

[[The Legend of Kaspar Hauser]] (Italian: La leggenda di Kaspar Hauser) is a 2012 Italian surreal drama film written and directed by [[Davide Manuli]]. In this modern western-like re-interpretation featuring [[Vincent Gallo]], a music-obsessive Kaspar washes up on a Mediterranean beach, where half a dozen protagonists try to make sense of who he is.

=== Music ===
Hauser's story has inspired numerous musical references. There have been at least two operas named after him, a 2007 work by American composer [[Elizabeth Swados]]<ref>{{cite news |title=Elizabeth Swados, Creator of Socially Conscious Musicals, Is Dead at 64 |first=William |last=Grimes |newspaper=The New York Times |date=2016-01-05 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/arts/elizabeth-swados-creator-of-socially-conscious-musicals-is-dead-at-64.html |access-date=2021-09-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160106102720/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/arts/elizabeth-swados-creator-of-socially-conscious-musicals-is-dead-at-64.html |archive-date=2016-01-06}}</ref><ref>{{YouTube|Z6OMcf26LCY|KASPAR HAUSER: a foundling's opera}}</ref> and a 2010 work by British composer [[Rory Boyle (composer)|Rory Boyle]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.operascotland.org/opera/69/Kaspar+Hauser+-+Child+of+Europe |title=Listings & Performance History: Kaspar Hauser - Child of Europe |website=OperaScotland.org}}</ref>  

In 1987, [[Suzanne Vega]] wrote "[[Solitude Standing|Wooden Horse (Caspar Hauser's Song)]]", based on how she imagined Hauser's experiences when he emerged from the dungeon.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Vega Lied|url=https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/gdavis/325students/englisch/vega.htm|access-date=2021-10-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211015200915/https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/gdavis/325students/englisch/vega.htm |archive-date=15 October 2021 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1994, Birgit Scherzer, then director and choreographer of the Saarbrücken Staatstheater Ballet in Germany, used the Hauser story as the basis for the ballet ''Kaspar Hauser'', which she presented at the Saarbrücken Staatstheater.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.balletmet.org/backstage/ballet-notes/163 |title=Birgit Scherzer, choreographer |website=[[BalletMet]] |date=September 1998 |access-date=25 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140908101507/https://www.balletmet.org/backstage/ballet-notes/163 |archive-date=8 September 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== Non-fiction ===
In his later years, [[Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach]] took a deep interest in the fate of Kaspar Hauser. He was the first to publish a critical summary of the ascertained facts, under the title of ''Kaspar Hauser, ein Beispiel eines Verbrechens am Seelenleben'' (1832).<ref>[https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0011/bsb00113211/images/index.html Complete book, digitalized] - [[Bavarian State Library]], Munich Digital Library. </ref>

[[Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson]] wrote ''Lost Prince: The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser'' (1996).<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=paq.067.0333a |title=Lost Prince. The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Translator and Introduction.: New York: The Free Press, 1996. 254 pp |journal=Psychoanalytic Quarterly |volume=67 |issue=2 |pages=333–335 |access-date=26 May 2009|year=1998 |last1=Landau |first1=B. J. }}</ref> It was also published as ''The Wild Child: The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser'' (2010).<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=GtSaUdFw7tIC&q=the+wild+child+masson ''The Wild Child'']</ref>

{{anchor|Kaspar Hauser experiment}} In a "Kaspar Hauser experiment", a nonhuman animal is reared isolated from members of its own species, in an attempt at determining which behaviors are innate.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100030873 |title = Kaspar Hauser experiment - Oxford Reference}}</ref>