An anaylsis of Grimmelshausen's character, Coursache, with a comparison of Grimmelshausen's Courasche and Brecht's character Mother Courage

As Grimmelshausen wrote Trutz-Simplex: Oder Lebensbeschreibung der Ertzbetruegerin und Landstoertzerin Courasche he was drawing on a literary tradition which had recently arrived from Spain. This tradition coupled with the Thirty Years' War gave Grimmelshausen the needed resources for many of his writings -- especially Courasche. The novel, a mixture of picaresque and baroque styles, is set during the Thirty Years 1 War and gives a humorous and sad account of the period. This thesis is concerned with an analysis of Grimmelshausen's heroine, Courasche, and attempts to show the reasons behind Grimmelshausen*s success in using a picara or female rogue as his protagonist during a period in which women consistently remained in the background. A further analysis of Courasehe is attempted by comparing her with Bertolt Brecht's character, Mother Courage, in Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder and by showing the influences of Grimmelshausen on Brecht