Mother Courage and Her Children Lesson Plan

Mother Courage and Her Children draws much of its inspiration and subject matter from two picaresque novels by the German writer Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, Simplicius Simplicimmus, written in 1668, and Runagate Courage, written in 1670. Born in 1621, Grimmelshausen lived through much of the Thirty Years' War, which ravaged the German countryside between 1614 and 1648. Both novels follow the exploits of heroes over the course of that conflict. Simplicius Simplicimmus is believed to be semi-autobiographical and follows the life of a rogue or picaro through the tumultuous world of the Holy Roman Empire; it was wildly popular during the latter half of the seventeenth century...