All great writers ask what it really means to be human, what conditions shape a person's life. Is it things like background or upbringing? Is it my brain or fate itself? When one examines Georg Büchner's literary work without bias, the political, the revolutionary—everything that makes Büchner a classic in German studies—takes a backseat. What this young poet believed he had discovered about the world was more universal and infinitely more melancholic.