Schnitzler’s Hidden Manuscripts ed. by Lorenzo Bellettini and Peter Hutchinson (review)

Discussing the unpublished materials from the Schnitzler papers housed at the Cambridge University Library and Schnitzler’s diaries in tandem with the author’s literary work, Lorenzo Bellettini and Peter Hutchinson’s book makes an important contribution to the new debates about Schnitzler. The articles in the volume are in German and English. The 2006 exhibition Schnitzler’s Hidden Manuscripts, curated by Bellettini, had been preceded by the publication of Schnitzler’s diaries in 2000. As was the case with the diaries, the archival papers add insights about Schnitzler that future scholarship will have to take into consideration. For example, Gabriella Rovagnati’s discovery of an “Ur-Reigen,” titled “Ein Liebesreigen,” opens new perspectives concerning the author’s intent and creative process. It sheds light on the considerations that motivated Schnitzler to cast the play in its final, more discreet form. Ideally, a future Reigen edition would publish both versions of the controversial play side by side. As is the case with other self-reflective authors such as Grillparzer, there are profound resonances connecting Schnitzler’s literary work, his notes and letters, and his systematically kept diaries of fifty years. The sheer volume of Schnitzler’s “hidden manuscripts”—more than two hundred folders, numbered and labeled in Schnitzler’s handwriting—calls for a new chapter in Schnitzler research.

Bellettini and his collaborators have produced a pioneering body of research surveying the materials awaiting further study. The articles in the volume highlight particular issues and at the same time delineate ways to approach the overwhelming mass of largely unknown material. The Cambridge papers, as do Schnitzler’s diaries and letters, represent a major aspect of the author’s writing. He himself remarked on occasion how important his diaries were to him, suggesting that he rated them higher than his literary oeuvre.

In their informative introductory article “The Schnitzler Nachlass” Christian Staufenbiel and Bellettini report on the history of Schnitzler’s Nachlass and its adventurous rescue. The papers survived because Schnitzler had meticulously collected and preserved them, as did the individuals to whom the Nachlass was entrusted. After the Nazi takeover Eric Blackall, at the time a student at the University of Vienna and later a professor at Cornell, was instrumental in getting the Schnitzler papers to Cambridge, where most of them remained. Bellettini and Staufenbiel aptly point out that in addition to shedding further light on Schnitzler, these papers contain important new information pertaining to the Wiener Moderne. Schnitzler’s perspective is that of an insider and participant, but because of his age and maturity he also acts as an observer and evaluator. In his article on Schnitzler’s diaries and letters, Giuseppe Farese examines the author’s attitude toward his diary and personal notes, begun at age eighteen. Not surprisingly, Schnitzler’s diaries became a repository of ideas, topics, and themes waiting to be transformed into literature. Despite or perhaps because of Schnitzler’s self-doubts regarding his literary talent, he carefully monitored himself, as his scrutinizing and rereading of the diaries reveals. Farese observes that Schnitzler’s earliest letters and diaries address a vast array of topics, including private concerns, social issues, psychology, aesthetics, and politics. Farese especially points to the reflections on patriotism, nationalism, revolution, war, and Jewish identity in a time of transition. From the outset, Schnitzler was opposed to World War I and to war in general, much in contrast to the countless German and Austrian intellectuals who hailed the war as an opportunity for heroism and triumph. Much like Karl Kraus, with whom, as Farese notes, Schnitzler often did not see eye to eye, Schnitzler was a staunch pacifist. Farese also stresses the centrality of Schnitzler’s private life in the letters and diaries, his affairs, as well as his marriage and other family matters, such as his father’s death and his daughter’s suicide.

Edward Timms’s comparative analysis of Schnitzler and Kraus, whose...