Liebesökonomie und "Neue Moral": Felix Dörmann als Novellist und Sonntagshumorist

This essay examines Felix Dörmann's largely unnoticed novellas that he published in Viennese feuilletons between 1899 and 1905 and analyzes these rather shallow texts as literary realizations and facets of a textual universe that depicts the economization of the social life in fin-de-siècle Vienna. In this context, Dörmann is experimenting with gender roles within the "economic" system of love and seeking to overcome financial dependency and gender inequality in his narratives. However, it turned out that market mechanisms were operating not only within the novellas. This essay explicates how questions of supply and demand also played a significant role in the creation of the texts themselves. Even though Dörmann's works come close to the dime novel genre, he provided some ironically twisted insights into the everyday economic reality of fin-de-siècle Vienna as well as a distinct counterpoint to Otto Weininger's thesis on the passive role of women.