Aneignungen, Entfremdungen: The Austrian Playwright Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872) (review)

The nine articles included in this volume are based on talks given at a symposium held at the University of Alberta in February 2004. One of the goals of the gathering devoted to Grillparzer was to examine the Austrian writer's "in-between" position, i.e. "inmitten (und außerhalb) der sich formierenden national(istisch)en Diskurse der Epoche" (ix). The participants also set out to interrogate the author's place "zwischen Weimarer Klassik, Romantik und Biedermeier, zwischen Österreich und Deutschland, zwischen den Staatsgedanken seiner Zeit und deren Kritik" (ix). Two topics which emerged from the original conference papers and eclipsed the conference's focus were the author's literary "conversations" with contemporary discourses on cultural, ethnic, and gender difference and the ways in which his oeuvre has been appropriated by different political regimes. The volume is introduced by a general essay highlighting the author's disdain for nationalism and followed by eight articles focusing on individual works (Das Kloster bei Sendomir, Libussa, König Ottokars Glück und Ende, and Der arme Spielmann), and on topics such as confrontations with the "other" or Grillparzer on stage, which draw on multiple works.

In almost all cases the authors tie their explorations to issues in contemporary literary and cultural studies, seeking to illustrate the degree to which Grillparzer and his works can speak to academics (and audiences) today. I would like to highlight three articles that do a particularly good job of this. In her article "The Fourfold Way to Internationalism: Grillparzer's Non-National Historical Literacy," Katherine Arens argues the need to rethink Grillparzer's position in literary history. Analyzing the ways in which Grillparzer's novella Das Kloster bei Sendomir engaged his contemporary readers in an open-ended dialogue, Arens illustrates that comparisons with Weimar classicism miss the depth and complexity of this work in particular and Grillparzer's position in literary history in general. Moreover, she suggests the necessity of reevaluating this "gothic" text. Arens frames her discussion by outlining four approaches to textual interpretations set forth by the church fathers, which would have been familiar to the readers of the novella—historia, allegoria, analogia, and aetiologia (21). Arens takes us through the multiple layers of texts, historical references, and discourses the readers at the time would have been conversant with, and explains how they would have engaged with the text on various levels. Ultimately, she argues that the author modernizes traditional ways of reading for his audience, setting himself apart from the Weimar cult of genius-hero.

In "Grillparzer on Stage: An Overview of Austrian Productions from the 1930s to the Present," Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner outlines the ways in which particular Grillparzer plays have been interpreted and even bowdlerized to address changing political situations. She writes, "An icon of Austrian national drama, Franz Grillparzer has repeatedly been the target of attempts to convert his figure into a bearer of ideology and an instrument of propaganda" (87). Ernst Lothar, who later had to flee Austria, staged Die Jüdin von Toledo in February 1937 as a statement against the rise of anti Semitism. Despite the fact that Grillparzer has been viewed as the Austrian counterpart to Weimar classicism, this did not prevent the National Socialists from co-opting Grillparzer for their nefarious goals. While certain Grillparzer plays were banned, others were reworked for political purposes. For example, when Libussa was staged at the Burgtheater "the director Lothar Müthel erased all references to Czech nationhood and altered the character of Libussa to suit the official National Socialist image of women" (89). Not surprisingly, Lothar made every effort to "denazify" the playwright when he returned to Austria from exile. However, as Deutsch-Schreiner points out, unlike his earlier productions critiquing Austria's pre-Nazi anti-Semitism, Lothar's post-war productions bowed to the political needs of the time and did not address Austrian complicity in persecution of its Jewish citizens. Deutsch-Schreiner then covers the...