Textschicksale: Das Werk Arthur Schnitzlers im Kontext der Moderne ed. by Wolfgang Lukas and Michael Scheffelt (review)

In November 2012, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Arthur Schnitzler's birth, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft organized a conference under the title "Textschicksale: Das Werk Arthur Schnitzlers im Spannungsfeld von Produktion, Rezeption und Adaption." The majority of the fifteen essays in this volume were drawn from the conference. The essays cover a wide range of topics and provide a wealth of new perspectives on Schnitzler's work and influence.

Throughout the volume, less-known works of Schnitzler are under discussion, which is highly informative to the non-specialists who wish for greater depth in understanding Jung Wien. In his essay, Stefan Scherer tracks in the earliest prose a progression of literary influences—from medical case studies, Romanticism, Impressionism, Naturalism up to Viennese Modernism. Among others, he discusses Frühlingsnacht im Seziersaal (1880), Welch eine Melodie (1885), Er wartet auf den vazierenden Gott (1886), Amerika (1887), Erbschaft (1887), Reichtum (1889), Der Andere: Aus dem Tagebuch eines Hinterbliebenen (1889) and concludes with the 1893 Spaziergang, in which the varying literary views of his fellow Jung Wien authors are represented in a conversation among four friends. Next, Karl Zieger examines four early dramas, Das Märchen (1893), Liebelei (1894), Freiwild (1896), and Das Vermächtnis (1898), for connections to Naturalism. Marie Kolkenbrock examines the symbolic function within Schnitzler's novella Flucht in die Finsternis (1931). In her analysis, she postulates that performative acts create the social reality. In times of social crisis, the performative acts and the symbolic functions connected to them increasingly appear as empty repetition, and one can no longer identify with them, as was the case in the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy. Michael Titzmann judges the depiction of human behavior in couple relationships in Der letzte Brief eines Literaten (1931) to be the most extreme in Schnitzer's works. It ends with reflections on death and suicide, in which the main character, Ego, views youth vs. age, health vs. illness as mere differences in degree. Life vs. death is the only real dichotomy.

Other essays focus on well-known works in the literary canon, shining new light onto these favorites. Rüdiger Görner explores the musicality of Schnitzler's narratives and begins by pointing to the Schnitzler interest in the voice as a physiological matter. He provides examples of musicality in Schnitzler's works, most notably in the interweaving of Schumann's Carnival op.9 in Fräulein Else (1924). In the climactic scene in the music room, Else drops her coat to publicly reveal her nudity, at a point when the piano player has reached the "Reconnaissance" section of the score. In the music, the recognition motif dominates, paradoxically connecting Else's desperate exhibitionism to her act of finding herself through willful self-expression. Fräulein Else is also the focus of the essay by Wolfgang Lukas and Ursula von Keitz, which examines four separate aspects of the novella, beginning with the refinement of the inner monologue and demonstrating how it differs greatly from the earlier form in Leutnant Gustl (1900). What follows is a detailed study with charts of the various printed text forms used for the different functions, such as italics for Else's thoughts. In her examination of Casanovas Heimfahrt (1918), Barbara Neymeyer observes how Schnitzler added the modern identity crisis in his reshaping of the mythos of Casanova. Schnitzler injected his own biographical elements into the story of the aging seducer, drawing connections not only to his other works but also to those of Kleist, Mann, Hoffmannswaldau, and Goethe.

Two essays compare Schnitzler to his contemporaries. Giovanni Tateo looks for influences and similarities between Schnitzler and the older author Ferdinand von Saar, whom Hermann Bahr considered a forerunner of the Jung Wien movement. Max Haberich draws comparisons between Schnitzler and his friend Jacob Wassermann in how they responded to anti-Semitism in both their autobiographical writings and their literary works.

In connecting...