Arthur Schnitzler

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The Austrian dramatist and novelist Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) is at his best in one-act plays and novellas that often deal with extreme situations - death, sexual conflicts, and neurotic and even psychotic states.

Born of Jewish parents in Vienna, where he spent almost his entire life as a physician, Arthur Schnitzler looked upon himself primarily as a scientist and never gave up his medical practice. His first creative period (1893-1900) saw the publication of numerous poems and sketches, largely centered on themes of infidelity and jealousy, and two major works, his first novella, Sterben (1894; Dying), and his first successful play, Anatol (1893).

In the mid-1890s Schnitzler was associated for a short time with a literary movement of impressionist writers, including Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who were violently opposed to the naturalism then in vogue in Berlin. But soon he broke away from café society - the Jung-Wien group, which gathered in Vienna's famous Café Griensteidl - and he never again joined any literary circle.

The highlight of Schnitzler's second phase (1900-1912) was his famous play Reigen (1900; La Ronde), which Eric Bentley has called "a great 'comedy' of sexual promiscuity." Banned, attacked, censored on its first appearance, and later withdrawn by Schnitzler himself, it has gradually won the reputation of a masterpiece of modern drama. La Ronde, in 10 brief dialogues between a man and a woman, reveals the attitudes of partners from all social classes before and after the act of love. Modern critics no longer see this play as pornographic but rather as a bitter, witty, and yet tender and melancholy examination of the human condition expressed through the metaphor of man's endless "round dance" of sexuality and desire.

As a writer of fiction, Schnitzler developed early in his career the technique known as stream of consciousness and later made famous by James Joyce. The best examples are two of his stories, Leutnant Gustl (1900; None but the Brave) and Fräulein Else (1925). The former is a long interior monologue describing an unpleasant young lieutenant who, insulted by a baker, broods until he reaches the decision to commit suicide in order to preserve his honor, only to be saved accidentally by the knowledge that the baker has died of a heart attack. In Fräulein Else Schnitzler used the stream-of-consciousness technique to reveal a psychotic young girl's motives for disrobing in a hotel lobby.

Schnitzler's third and last period, from 1912 to the time of his death, has often been referred to as "retrospective." To this phase belong such masterpieces as Frau Beate und ihr Sohn (1913; Beatrice) and Casanovas Heimfahrt (1918; Casanova's Homecoming) and the novella Traumgekrönt (1925; Rhapsody). In two important works, his long autobiographical novel, Der Weg ins Freie (1908; The Road to the Open), and the play Professor Bernhardi (1913), Schnitzler deals with racial and religious prejudice, specifically with anti-Semitism, which he sees as a problem of general human concern. He chooses many of his characters from the medical profession and assigns to them the role of the raisonneur who expresses his own tolerant views on life and love.

Further Reading

Schnitzler's My Youth in Vienna, translated by Catherine Hutter (1970), is his diary of his early years, through the 1870s. The most complete study of him in English is Solomon Liptzin, Arthur Schnitzler (1932). A good sampling of critical investigations is the eight papers delivered at the University of Kentucky in 1962: Studies in Arthur Schnitzler: Centennial Commemorative Volume, edited by Herbert W. Reichert and Herman Salinger (1963). The most comprehensive and reliable guide to the literature by and about Schnitzler is Richard H. Allen, An Annotated Arthur Schnitzler Bibliography 1879-1965 (1966).

Additional Sources

Psychoanalysis and old Vienna: Freud, Reik, Schnitzler, Kraus, New York: Human Sciences Press, 1978.

Schnitzler, Arthur (Vienna, 1862-1931, Vienna), the son of a prominent Jewish laryngologist, studied medicine at Vienna University and qualified, but showed no inclination to emulate his father, though for a time he held a hospital appointment. For several years he led the life of a man about town, having liaisons of varying length, of which the most important were with the hotel-keeper's wife Olga Waissnix and the embroideress Jeanette Heger. From 1894 until 1899, his relationship with Marie Reinhard also provided him with much material which he exploited in his writing. He entered upon authorship as a boy, and in his mid-twenties had poems published in An der schönen blauen Donau, the literary supplement of the Neue Freie Presse. In 1893 he left hospital work for private practice, but his list of patients did not extend far beyond his circle of friends. He was soon able to live by his pen, and his chief occupations were his writing and his erotic experiences. In 1901 he was removed from the list of reserve officers of the Austrian military medical corps because his story Leutnant Gustl was held to insult the honour of the army. He married in 1903 and the marriage was dissolved in 1921. In 1928 his daughter committed suicide at the age of 18.

Schnitzler's work, which attracted public attention from 1895 (première of Liebelei in the Burgtheater), is concentrated on sex and death, and shows a remarkable capacity to create atmosphere and to pursue profound, ruthless, and often Freudian analysis of human motives, which he investigated most minutely in his own sceptical self. He was successful as a dramatist in both short and long forms. The seven one-act plays of Anatol (1893) were followed by other groups, Lebendige Stunden (1902), Marionetten (1906), Komödie der Worte (1915), and, the last performed, the cycle of Reigen (1900). His first full-length play, Das Märchen, appeared in 1894. An Ibsenist treatment of a ‘fallen woman’, it preceded Liebelei, which was followed by Freiwild in 1898, and Das Vermächtnis in 1899. All of these deal with illicit love, though Freiwild also raises the question of the code of honour and the duel. With Paracelsus (1899) and Der Schleier der Beatrice (1901) Schnitzler diverged for a short time unconvincingly into verse drama, though he adhered to prose for the ‘Groteske’ in one act, Der grüne Kakadu (1899), which has as background the French Revolution. The play Der einsame Weg (1904) marked his reversion to prose and was followed by the light-weight Freudian comedy Zwischenspiel (1906) and an implausible military-cum-erotic tragedy, Der Ruf des Lebens (1906). Komtesse Mizzi oder der Familientag (1909) was another light comedy, but Der junge Medardus (1910), set in Napoleonic times, represented a laboured attempt at historical drama. Das weite Land (1911) struck many as Schnitzler's most cynical work, but in 1912 he achieved a remarkable and balanced comedy on the theme of anti-Semitism in Professor Bernhardi. The war seems to have inhibited his dramatic vein, for the later plays, except for the verse drama Der Gang zum Weiher (1926), are superficial (Fink und Fliederbusch, 1917; Die Schwestern oder Casanova im Spa, 1919; Komödie der Verführung, 1924; Im Spiel der Sommerlüfte, 1930).

Schnitzler's greatest gifts emerge in his Novellen, which blend atmosphere and mood, so as to infuse into the almost invariably erotic material a bitter-sweet attractiveness, and occasionally invoke the uncanny. Outstanding among them are Sterben (1893), Die Frau des Weisen, Der Ehrentag (both 1897), Die Toten schweigen (1898), Leutnant Gustl, Frau Berta Garlan (both 1901), Der blinde Geronimo und sein Bruder (1902, of fraternal love, undermined but restored), Frau Beate und ihr Sohn (1913), Doktor Gräsler, Badearzt (1917), Casanovas Heimfahrt (1918; these last three were collected as Die Alternden, 1922), Fräulein Else (1924), Traumnovelle (1926, a Freudian fantasy), Spiel im Morgengrauen (1927), and Flucht in die Finsternis (1931). The volume of early stories, Die kleine Komödie, appeared posthumously in 1932.

Schnitzler is the author of two novels, Der Weg ins Freie (1908), a masterpiece in its portrayal of a stratum of Viennese society, and Therese (1928), a work in which the style and structure fail to sustain the long narrative; Therese, an orphan girl of good family, is seduced and goes steadily downhill, and in the end is murdered by her own illegitimate son.

Schnitzler's autobiographical Jugend in Wien (up to 1889), ed. by his son Heinrich Schnitzler and Th. Nickl, appeared in 1968, Meisterdramen in 1955, Gesammelte Werke (6 vols.), ed. R. O. Weiß et al., 1961-7, Meistererzählungen in 1969, and correspondence with G. Brandes in 1956, with H. von Hofmannsthal in 1964, with Olga Waissnix, Liebe, die starb vor der Zeit, in 1970 (new edn. 1981), with M. Reinhardt in 1971, and with Hedy Kempny, Das Mädchen mit den dreizehn Seelen, ed. H. P. Adamek, in 1984. Briefe 1875-1912, ed. Th. Nickl and H. Schnitzler, appeared in 1981, and Briefe 1913-1931, ed. P. M. Braunwarth, R. Miklin, S. Pertlik, and H. Schnitzler, in 1984; and an extensive edition of Schnitzler's diaries (Tagebuch) by W. Welzig et al. from 1981.

Quotes:

"Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief."

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Arthur Schnitzler, ca. 1912

Dr. Arthur Schnitzler (May 15, 1862, Leopoldstadt - October 21, 1931, Vienna) was an Austrian author and dramatist.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Selected works 2.1 Plays 2.2 Novels 2.3 Short stories and novellas 2.4 Nonfiction 3 Publications 4 References 5 External links

Biography

Arthur Schnitzler, the son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter (a daughter of the Viennese doctor Philipp Markbreiter), was born in Praterstraße 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, then Vienna was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and began studying medicine at the University of Vienna in 1879. He received his doctorate of medicine in 1885 and worked in Vienna's General Hospital (German: Allgemeines Krankenhaus der Stadt Wien, AKH), but ultimately abandoned medicine in favour of writing.

His works were often controversial, both for their frank description of sexuality (Sigmund Freud, in a letter to Schnitzler, confessed "I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition — though actually as a result of sensitive introspection — everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons")^[1] and for their strong stand against anti-Semitism, represented by works such as his play Professor Bernhardi and the novel Der Weg ins Freie. However, though Schnitzler was himself Jewish, Professor Bernhardi and Fraulein Else are among the few clearly-identified Jewish protagonists in his work.

Schnitzler was branded as a pornographer after the release of his play Reigen, in which ten pairs of characters are shown before and after the sexual act, leading and ending with a prostitute. The furore after this play was couched in the strongest anti-semitic terms;^[2] his works would later be cited as "Jewish filth" by Adolf Hitler. Reigen was made into a French language film in 1950 by the German-born director Max Ophuls as La Ronde. The film achieved considerable success in the English-speaking world, with the result that Schnitzler's play is better known there under Ophuls' French title.

In the novella, Fräulein Else (1924), Schnitzler may be rebutting a contentious critique of the Jewish character by Otto Weininger (1903) by positioning the sexuality of the young female Jewish protagonist.^[3] The story, a first-person stream of consciousness narrative by a young aristocratic woman, reveals a moral dilemma that ends in tragedy.

In response to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about the critical view that his works all seemed to treat the same subjects, he replied, "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?" Despite his seriousness of purpose, Schnitzler frequently approaches the bedroom farce in his plays (and had an affair with one of his actresses, Adele Sandrock). Professor Bernhardi, a play about a Jewish doctor who turns away a Catholic priest in order to spare a patient the realization that she is on the point of death, is his only major dramatic work without a sexual theme.

A member of the avant-garde group Young Vienna (Jung Wien), Schnitzler toyed with formal as well as social conventions. With his 1900 short story Lieutenant Gustl, he was the first to write German fiction in stream-of-consciousness narration. The story is an unflattering portrait of its protagonist and of the army's obsessive code of formal honour. It caused Schnitzler to be stripped of his commission as a reserve officer in the medical corps — something that should be seen against the rising tide of anti-semitism of the time.

He specialized in shorter works like novellas and one-act plays. And in his short stories like The Green Tie (Die grüne Krawatte) he showed himself to be one of the early masters of microfiction. However he also wrote two full-length novels: Der Weg ins Freie about a talented but not very motivated young composer, a brilliant description of a segment of pre-World War I Viennese society; and the artistically less satisfactory Therese.

In addition to his plays and fiction, Schnitzler meticulously kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death, of a brain hemorrhage in Vienna. The manuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages, is most notable for Schnitzler's casual descriptions of sexual conquests — he was often in relationships with several women at once, and for a period of some years he kept a record of every orgasm. Collections of Schnitzler's letters have also been published.

Stanley Kubrick's last film Eyes Wide Shut (1999) was based on Schnitzler's 1926 novella Dream Story (Traumnovelle).

Selected works

Plays

• Anatol (1893), a series of seven acts revolving around a bourgeoisie playboy and his immature relationships.
• Flirtation (Liebelei - 1895), also known as The Reckoning, which was made into a film by Max Ophüls and adapted as Dalliance by Tom Stoppard (1986)^[4] and Sweet Nothings by David Harrower for the Young Vic in 2010.^[5]
• Fair Game (Freiwild - 1896)
• Reigen (1897), more usually called La Ronde and also known as Hands Around, is still frequently presented. Max Ophüls directed the first movie adaptation of the play in 1950; Roger Vadim directed a second version in 1964. In 1998, it was reworked by British playwright David Hare as The Blue Room.^[6]
• Paracelsus (1899)
• The Green Cockatoo (Der grüne Kakadu - 1899)
• La Ronde - 1900
• The Lonely Way (Der einsame Weg - 1903)
• Intermezzo (Zwischenspiel - 1904)
• Der Ruf des Lebens (1906)
• Countess Mizzi or the Family Reunion (Komtesse Mizzi oder Der Familientag - 1907)
• Living Hours (1911)
• Young Medardus (Der junge Medardus - 1910)
• The Vast Domain (Das weite Land - 1911). The play was adapted as Undiscovered Country by Tom Stoppard (1979).^[7].
• Professor Bernhardi (1912)
• The Comedy of Seduction (Komödie der Verführung - 1924)

Novels

• The Road Into the Open (Der Weg ins Freie - 1908)
• Therese. Chronik eines Frauenlebens (1928)

Short stories and novellas

• Dying (Sterben - 1895)
• None but the Brave (Leutnant Gustl - 1900)
• Berta Garlan (1900)
• Blind Geronimo and his Brother (Der blinde Geronimo und sein Bruder - 1902)
• The Prophecy (Die Weissagung - 1905)
• Casanova's Homecoming (Casanovas Heimfahrt - 1918)
• Fräulein Else (1924)
• Dream Story (Traumnovelle - 1925/26), later adapted as the film Eyes Wide Shut by American director Stanley Kubrick)
• Night Games (Spiel im Morgengrauen - 1926)
• Flight into Darkness (Flucht in die Finsternis - 1931)
• The Death of a Bachelor

Nonfiction

• Youth in Vienna (Jugend in Wien), an autobiography published posthumously in 1968
• Diary, 1879-1931
• Comedies of Words and Other Plays (1917)

Publications

• Theodor Reik Arthur Schnitzler als Psycholog (Minden, 1913)
• H. B. Samuel Modernities (London, 1913)
• J. G. Huneker Ivory, Apes, and Peacocks (New York, 1915)
• Ludwig Lewisohn The Modern Drama (New York, 1915)

References

1. ^ http://www.research-horizons.cam.ac.uk/features/schnitzler-s-hidden-manuscripts-explored.aspx
2. ^ http://www.virtualvienna.net/columns/vinal/arthur_schnitzler_scandal.html
3. ^ Race, Andrew Barker, Sex and Character in Schnitzler's Fräulein Else, German Life and Letters. v. 54(1):1-9
4. ^ Dalliance was staged at the National Theatre by Peter Wood. It opened in the Lyttelton Theatre 27 May 1986.
5. ^ Sweet Nothings was directed by Luc Bondy at the Young Vic and opened on 25 February 2010.
6. ^ The Blue Room was staged at the Donmar Warehouse in London by Sam Mendes, opening on 22 September 1998.
7. ^ Undiscovered Country was staged at the National Theatre by Peter Wood. It opened in the Olivier Theatre 20 June 1979.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Arthur Schnitzler

• PushkinPress.com English editions of works by the author
• Arthur Schnitzler at the Internet Broadway Database
• Works by Arthur Schnitzler at Project Gutenberg
• Additional works by Arthur Schnitzler (eLibrary Projekt - eLib)
• Pushkin Press - Arthur Schnitzler - Fraulein Else
• Pushkin Press - Arthur Schnitzler - Casanova's Return to Venice

See also: Schnitzler

Persondata
NAME	Schnitzler, Arthur
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Austrian writer and doctor
DATE OF BIRTH	May 15, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH	Vienna
DATE OF DEATH	October 21, 1931
PLACE OF DEATH	Vienna

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