After completing a commercial apprenticeship, Theobaldy studied at the Universities of Education at Freiburg im Breisgau and Heidelberg, hoping perhaps, at least initially, to become a primary or secondary school teacher.
His poetry from this period shifted towards an "anti-ideological" focus on everyday reality, similar to the approach of Nicolas Born and Michael Buselmeier [de].
[12] In addition to poetry, Theobaldy has published several novels and volumes with stories, most of which reflect his experiences in places like Heidelberg, Berlin, and Bern.
Michael Kämper-van den Boogart [de] describes novels and prose of Theobaldy, as well as those of his colleagues Botho Strauss and Uwe Timm, as seeing an "aesthetic" that mirrors the experience of human failures and defeats, as accomplished in their socially critical works.
[13] Gregory Divers notes that the style of Theobaldy's early 1960s works reveals the author's indebtedness to contemporary, often provocative American and British poetry.