The Viennese poet, dramatist, and prose writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) was among the most celebrated men of letters in the German language at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. His early poems established his reputation as the `child prodigy' of German letters, and a few remain among the most anthologized in the German language. His early lyric dramas prompted no less a judge than T. S. Eliot to pronounce him, along with Yeats and Claudel, one of the three European writers who had done the most to revive verse drama in modern times. His critical essays attest to the subtle powers of discrimination that marked him as one of the most discerning literary critics of the day. And yet he underwent a crisis of cognition and language around 1900, and from then on turned away from poetry and lyric drama almost entirely, concentrating instead on more public forms of drama such as the libretti for Richard Strauss's operas, the plays written for the Salzburg Festival (of which he was a co-founder), and on discursive and narrative prose. The body of work that Hofmannsthal left behind at his premature death is matched in its variety, breadth, and quality by that of only a handful of German writers. And yet posterity has not been kind to his reputation: those who admired the early work for its aesthetic refinement disdained his turn to more popular forms, whereas many of those who might have been receptive to the more committed and public stance of his later work were put off by his conservative politics. This volume of new essays by top Hofmannsthal scholars re-examines his extraordinarily rich and complex body of work, assessing his stature in German and world literature in the new century. Contributors: Katherine Arens, Judith Beniston, Benjamin Bennett, Nina Berman, Joanna Bottenberg, Douglas A. Joyce, Thomas A. Kovach, Ellen Ritter, Hinrich C. Seeba, Andreas Thomasberger, W. Edgar Yates. Professor Thomas Kovach is Head of the Department of German Studies at the University of Arizona.

Hermann Broch (1886-1951) is remembered among English-speaking readers for his novels The Sleepwalkers and The Death of Virgil, and among German-speaking readers for his novels as well as his works on moral and political philosophy, his aesthetic theory, and his varied criticism. This study reveals Broch as a major historian as well, one who believes that true historical understanding requires the faculties of both poet and philosopher. Through an analysis of the changing thought and career of the Austrian poet, librettist, and essaist Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929), Broch attempts to define and analyze the major intellectual issues of the European fin de siècle, a period that he characterizes according to the Nietzschean concepts of the breakdown of rationality and the loss of a central value system. The result is a major examination of European thought as well as a comparative study of political systems and artistic styles.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal is one of the modern era's most important writers, but his fame as Richard Strauss's pioneering collaborator on such operas as Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau ohne Schatten has obscured his other remarkable writings: his precocious lyric poetry, inventive short fiction, keen essays, and visionary plays. The Whole Difference, which includes new translations as well as classic ones long out of print, is a fresh introduction to the enormous range of this extraordinary artist, and the most comprehensive collection of Hofmannsthal's writings in English. Selected and edited by the poet and librettist J. D. McClatchy, this collection includes early lyric poems; short prose works, including "The Tale of Night Six Hundred and Seventy-Two," "A Tale of the Cavalry," and the famous "Letter of Lord Chandos"; two full-length plays, The Difficult Man and The Tower; as well as the first act of The Cavalier of the Rose. From the glittering salons of imperial Vienna to the bloodied ruins of Europe after the Great War, the landscape of Hofmannsthal's world stretches across the extremes of experience. This collection reflects those extremes, including both the sparkling social comedy of "the difficult man" Hans Karl, so sensitive that he cannot choose between the two women he loves, and the haunting fictional letter to Francis Bacon in which Lord Chandos explains why he can no longer write. Complete with an introduction by McClatchy, this collection reveals an artist whose unusual subtlety and depth will enthrall readers.

Contents: Poems and Verse Plays; Plays and Libretti; Hofmannsthal's Debt to the English-speaking World Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) was one of the great modernists in the German language, but his importance as a major intellectual of the early twentieth century has not received adequate attention in the English-speaking world. One distinguished literary scholar of his generation called Hofmannsthal a "spiritual-moral authority" of a kind German culture had only rarely produced. This volume provides translations of essays that deal with the Austrian idea and with the distinctive position of German-speaking Austrians between German nationalism and peoples to the East, whether in the Habsburg Monarchy or beyond it, as well as essays that locate Hofmannsthal's thinking about Austria in relation to the broader situation of German and European culture.

Although Hofmannsthal never completed his only novel Andreas, its theme—the quest for self through memory—haunted the Viennese writer and recurs again and again in his poems, libretti, and essays. Analyzing the fragment, David Miles discusses Hofmannsthal's understanding of memory and myth, Andreas' pivotal role in his work, and its place within the tradition of such novels as Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and Rilke's Malte. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A Study Guide for Hugo von Hofmannsthal's "Elektra," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.

A Study Guide for Hugo von Hofmannsthal's "The Tower," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.

Hofmannsthal’s comedy An Impossible Man is by common consent considered his stage masterpiece and has assumed the status of a classic in German-speaking countries. It is a play both about the passing historical moment which marked the end of the Habsburg era, together with its culture and class structure, whilst it is also a finely gauged critique of language as the badge of that culture. The highly polished, crafted diction the playwright employs shows up language as the awed but indispensable vehicle of social communication. Hofmannsthal’s dramatic technique is comparable to Chekhov’s, since he uses conversation mainly for expository purposes with largely static effect, and by his choice of an essentially passive hero who is a problem to himself and to others. The problematic nature of language (a constant theme in Hofmannsthal’s work and most consummately expressed in A Letter of 1902) is identified with and given voice through the complicated character of the hero Hans Karl. Moral seriousness is so finely interfused with a lightness of ironic texture in this comedy that no trace of gravity remains.