Arthur Schnitzler is a famous Austrian writer and playwright, famous for his famous plays and short stories, which have long become classics of world literature. His work is very multifaceted, so many researchers find it difficult to determine the direction to which he belongs. The works of the author are extremely interesting in that they can determine the state of literature at the turn of the 19-20 centuries.
Carier start
Arthur Schnitzler was born in Vienna in 1862 into a Jewish family. His father was a doctor, and the young man, following the example of his parent, entered the medical faculty of the capital's university. For several years he worked as a psychoanalyst, worked in his father’s clinic, and even did scientific work. However, feeling an interest in literature and theater, he soon gave up medical practice and began writing. Glory did not come to him immediately. At first, his works either went unnoticed or caused sharp discontent among a number of critics and literary critics.
However, by the beginning of the First World War, Arthur Schnitzler had become quite famous among the creative intelligentsia. At first, his work bore the traits of modernism. The writer began by creating one-act plays that were quite popular around the turn of the century. “Anatole” (1893) is the story of a poet, a dandy, who is in a constant search for himself and his own creative path. He leads a rather idle life, which is a series of love adventures and adventures. He is opposed to the image of his friend Max, a sane and soberly reasoning person who tries to calm his friend and periodically helps him in his conflicts with women. Anatole constantly deceives his beloved, but at the same time he himself often turns out to be deceived - a motive characteristic of the writer's work.
Theme of modern society
Arthur Schnitzler paid great attention to the image of a modern society. At the turn of the century, an atmosphere of despondency and longing reigned among the intelligentsia in connection with the crisis of cultural life. The accumulated contradictions in the empire, which was a motley conglomerate of peoples united only by territory, made themselves felt more clearly. The tense socio-political situation affected literature. Young writers increasingly began to portray the degradation of high society, the decomposition of the morality of its representatives. At the same time, the love theme began to play a big role. Schnitzler Arthur paid quite a lot of attention to her. In the plays “Tale” and “Flirt”, he again returned to the topic of deceived love, showing this tragedy as an example of the fate of an actress and a simple village girl.
Popularity in Russia
The writer became famous in our country after the publication of his story "Lieutenant Gustl" (1901). This work is fundamentally different from what he wrote before: this novel is an internal monologue of the protagonist, who, due to an empty encounter with a baker in the dressing room of the concert hall, experiences a storm of emotions. He perceives this as an insult, which became the impetus for a whole chain of reasoning of this character.
Unlike previous works of the author, this story does not have a clear plot structure and plot. Since the writer was very interested in the psychoanalytic theory of Z. Freud, he paid great attention to the description of the emotional experiences of his heroes. Therefore, the author in our country was often compared with Dostoevsky and Chekhov, which, perhaps, explains the reason for his popularity in Russia. Many critics, poets wrote articles and reviews of his works, which indicates the serious interest of the domestic intelligentsia in his work (A. Blok, M. Tsvetaeva, L. Trotsky).
Heyday of prose
In the last decade of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, the writer became known as a talented novelist thanks to the release of short stories. One of them, “The Wise Man's Wife,” tells of an unusual love story that happened between a hero and one young woman, who, however, was older than him. The story begins from the moment several years after this event. The hero arrives at the resort and unexpectedly meets a woman whom he once loved, but was forced to flee for fear of being caught by her husband. In a conversation with her, he learns that her husband forgave her, but she herself does not understand this and continues to live the dream of love. Little by little, he begins to perceive everything that is happening as a dream - the main motive in the writer's work, which developed under the influence of Freudian theories. In this regard, the author is adjacent to the Vienna impressionists. Among his most famous prose works can be distinguished such as "Theresa", "Frau Beata and her son."
The main subject
One of the most famous writers of the 20th century was Arthur Schnitzler. "Round dance" is a work that has become the quintessence of all his work. However, the love problem, which he solved in the spirit of Freud and Impressionism, a cross-cutting theme runs through all his works. All heroes, as a rule, go through the test of this feeling. Sentimental, romantic, and naturalistic motifs are whimsically interwoven in writers' works, with the latter clearly prevailing. The author pays great attention to a detailed description of the luxury of high society, which sets off the spiritual decline of influential nobles and fashionable beauties.
Forbidden play
The real master of impressionism was Arthur Schnitzler. "Round dance", the summary of which is rather straightforward, became his most scandalous work. The author again turned to the description of the love affairs of his heroes, but if earlier the love line developed against the background of the description of social reality, which also occupied an important place in the writer's work, now he concentrated solely on the analysis of the heroes' love adventures, and described their adventures in a too naturalistic form . Here you can see the influence of the famous French novelist Guy de Maupassant. The audience was outraged by a series of frank scenes, which, in fact, were the content of the play. There is no clear plot in it, the author describes several love meetings of heroes of various ranks and estates.
Plot
Arthur Schnitzler, whose “Love Round Dance” became the central work in his work, became famous as a subtle psychologist who was able to accurately convey the subconscious movements and experiences of his heroes. This play reflected the most characteristic features of the playwright's work: the depiction of the depravity of contemporary society, the decline of moral values and the swagger of morals. The characters in the work are an officer, a street girl, a poet, an actress, a young woman, a young man, an influential count. The author has always sought to show representatives of the most diverse classes and classes and present their behavior in various situations. The first meeting takes place in a night city, on the banks of the Danube, then the author is transferred to living quarters, describing dark rooms where couples meet again.
Features
The work “Round dance" (a play by the Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler) gained notoriety, largely due to the fact that the author too openly showed erratic love affairs of the characters. The public considered this work vulgar and indecent, although some theaters still tried to stage it. This time, the playwright focused exclusively on the cynical image of love - he did not soften his colors, there is not a single hero in his drama who would like to empathize or sympathize with. There is nothing life-affirming or light in the composition, there is no moral or moral idea that makes the play very pessimistic and dull. It is not surprising that the play “Round dance” based on the play by Arthur Schnitzler turned out to be scandalous. The audience did not want to accept this plot, it even came to the point that they threw smoke bombs on the stage . And today, this work is perceived very ambiguously because of its controversial plot.
War years
The play "Round dance" by Arthur Schnitzler is a description of the love affairs of heroes of various ranks, classes and ages. This topic is central to his prose, in which, through a subtle psychological analysis, he tried to explain the motives of love passion. However, the war was a serious shock for him, and it affected his work. The author began to write less and nevertheless created one of his most iconic works - the story "The Return of Casanova", which tells about the old age of a famous lover who did not want to give up his positions and entered into a rivalry with a young lieutenant who does not take him seriously. In the following years, his other short stories were published, among which the composition The Young Lady Elsa should be noted.
The writer again resorted to his favorite device - the heroine’s internal monologue, through which the reader gets the opportunity to understand her psychology. The young girl, the daughter of a successful lawyer, suddenly finds out about the ruin of her father, and this leads her to serious mental thoughts about how to help the parent who asked her for help. In the mind, she models and constructs various situations, presents conversations with friends, and thus, the story turns into an internal monologue of the heroine.
Last years
After the war and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the writer remained faithful to his favorite themes depicting the pre-war life of the country. So, in the novel “Game at Dawn”, the main character, the lieutenant, rehabilitates the old Austrian army, as it were. However, the author was hard on the collapse of the empire and the radical breakdown of the old foundations and lifestyle. At the same time, there is a tragedy in his personal life. His daughter, having married, at a very young age committed suicide, which accelerated the death of the author. He died of a stroke in 1931.
Value
Prose and drama occupy a prominent place in world literature. One-act plays, short stories, novels by Schnitzler became a landmark event in the cultural life of Europe at the turn of the century. Some researchers associate his works with the works of the Impressionists, while others - with the modernists. One way or another, but his works are interesting in that they reflected the life of contemporary Hungarian society, both higher and lower.
In addition, he introduced the concept of "internal monologue" into literature, which had a great influence on the development of the psychological direction in prose. His observations of love relationships are distinguished not only by naturalism, but also by psychological analysis. Largely due to this, Arthur Schnitzler gained European fame. A round dance, the content of which is a collection of love scenes between different people, is the most striking example of a play demonstrating the author’s desire to describe the intimate aspects of human life.