Hofmannsthal Jahrbuch: Zur europäischen Moderne ed. by Maximilian Bergengruen, Alexander Honold, Gerhard Neumann (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Hofmannsthal Jahrbuch: Zur europäischen Moderne ed. by Maximilian Bergengruen, Alexander Honold, Gerhard Neumann
• Vincent Kling

Maximilian Bergengruen, Alexander Honold, Gerhard Neumann et al., eds., Hofmannsthal Jahrbuch: Zur europäischen Moderne 30. Baden-Baden: Rombach, 2022.

The range and scope of many specialized annual publications can be surprising. Their stated focus on one writer, theme, or period seems to pinpoint them, and while that is so, they often include primary documentation and archival research not easily accommodated in quarterly journals. This current volume of the Hofmannsthal Jahrbuch contains pieces on Hofmannsthal, to be sure, but much else of interest from various perspectives.

The right place to begin is with the contributions on Hofmannsthal, two on Jedermann and one on Der Turm. In his finely argued essay "Wer ist Jedermann? Das Drama zwischen Botschaft und Adressat" (145–69), Alexander Honold points to Hofmannsthal's own account of his diverse sources (150)—the English play Everyman from about 1490, Hans Sachs's "Comedi vom sterbend reichen Menschen," a poem by Albrecht Dürer, and a collection of lyrics by Minnesänger from the thirteenth century. Honold argues that Hofmannsthal was so conscientious about informing his audience through a series of essays about his sources because the stylized and allegorical flavor of the work required an adjustment on the part of his audience. Once the play moved from a theater in Berlin to the cathedral square in Salzburg, it found its true locus and meaning:

Statt des geschlossenen Theatersaals … sah sich nun eine ganze Stadt mit ihren Bergen und Burgen, Kirchen und Plätzen zur Bühne … für das "Jedermann"-Stück umfunktioniert, und das von liturgischzeremoniellen Elementen gesättigte Werk war damit … tatsächlich zu einem, wie Hofmannsthal es fasste, "Spiel vor der Menge" geworden.

(152)

As if in answer to Honold, Heinz Rölleke points out in "Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Der Librettist auf Abwegen" (171–74) a considerable blemish in Jedermann, especially notable because the great artist who had just created the incomparably skilled and subtle language for Der Rosenkavalier interpolated into this new play poems from an anthology that are clumsy and ineffectual (172). Rölleke notes the time pressure Hofmannsthal was working under and attributes this misstep to haste. He compares the poor quality of [End Page 108] the poems and their "wenig inspiriete Vertonung" by Einar Nilson to the magnificent musical settings by Frank Martin in 1943 (174).

Hans Richard Brittnacher's article, "Der traumatisierte Heros: Das Desaster des Ersten Weltkriegs in Hofmannsthals Der Turm (1924/25/26)" (175–95), is based on exceptionally thorough research; the compendious notes draw on a wide range of sources and arguments, proceeding from Roland Innerhofer's contention that "Hofmannsthals Turm ist nur von der Folie der politischen Situation in Österreich nach 1918 zu verstehen" (175). This insight explains the varying degrees of despair and hope, of violence and conciliation in the several versions of the play, which constitute nothing less than Hofmannsthal's "Lebenswerk," as he identified it to Josef Nadler (176). Assessed outright by Hans Mayer as "missglückt," Der Turm has been subjected to "teilweise extravaganten Deutungen," largely because of its conservative and culturally pessimistic character. Brittnacher makes clear from his title that the play, like the later works of Schiller, is a contemporary exploration of political models for rulership, a palimpsest, as it were, over Calderón's La vida es sueño, in keeping with Hofmannsthal's practice of aligning the topical along the whole Western cultural tradition. Brittnacher is also not the first to see in Der Turm the clear presence of "die Figur des wohl berühmtesten Findlings der deutschen Geschichte, Kaspar Hauser," but Brittnacher goes deeper than any other commentator in developing the similarities (184–94).

The two contributions on Schnitzler are quite different in aim and character. Konstantin Asadowski and Martin Anton Müller edited and introduced "Die Korrespondenz von Arthur Schnitzler mit Isabella und Zinaida Vengerova" (7–92), which spans 1907 to 1914, a period perforce ended by war. The letters begin with Zinaida Vengerova's request for a new play to be performed and published in her Russian translation; they expand into an exploration of possibilities for Schnitzler...