THE MOTIF OF THE STAGE PLAY IN THE 19th CENTURY AUSTRIAN FICTION
Journal Title: Studia Litterarum - Year 2016, Vol 1, Issue 3
Abstract
The article discusses the evolution of the stage play motif in the Austrian fction during the 19th Century. Occupying a special place in the Austrian culture, theater becomes a peculiar form of conceptualizing the most important issues of being and social life. Theater forms important part of the fctional world of such Austrian writers as A. Stifter, F. von Zaar, P. Rosegger, and M. G. Saphir. The essay analyzes the stage play motif in the context of literary Biedermeier and its didactic, humorous, and ironic views of the theatrical culture in Vienna. The motifs of the mask, the stage, and the curtain become permanent attributes in the works by Austrian authors. Theater plays are educational and instructive (as in the novels by Stifter) or carnivalesque (by Saphir), but in any case they remain а positively charged dominant in the fctional world of these authors. However, a truly magnifcent performance, according to the most thoughtful Austrian writers such as A. Stifter, among its landscapes and changing seasons, as opposed to the theatrical and hypocritical salon life of the capital. This world view is prevalent, for example, in Stifter’s “Indian Summer.” In the second half of the 19th Century, the joyful apprehension of stage play abandons literature for Viennese operetta. At the end of the 19th Century, the playfulness of the Austrian fction gives way to disturbing motifs and tragic vision. We encounter an understanding of life as at once a tragic and farcical theatrical performance in the novels by M. Ebner-Eschenbach and A. Schnitzler which marked a transition to the philosophical and existential view of the theater, typical for the literature of Austrian modernism.
Authors and Affiliations
Alla A. Strelnikova
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP26110
- DOI 10.22455/2500-4247-2016-1-3-4-162-173
- Views 362
- Downloads 16
Epic Specificity of Ukrainian Folk Dumas
The article examines the epic specificity of Ukrainian dumas. It does it by demonstrating the originality of the verbal form of dumas, the musical elements of its texts and their performers, blind musicians, and by dis...
Round Table “Istoriography of Russian Civil War in Literature, Ego-Documents and Criticism”
No Abstract
The Spirit of Laws and the Debate about Russian Despotism
The fate of The Spirit of Laws by Ch.-L. Montesquieu in Russia in the second half of the 18th century is an example of ambiguous reception that the French enlightener and his ideas received at that time prompting both...
ADULT AND HIS OTHER: CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE CHILDHOOD IN THE AUSTRIAN MODERNIST FICTION (ON THE EXAMPLE OF R.M. RILKE)
The childhood as the subject of psychology, philosophy, and art is object of intensive study in the 20th century Austrian culture. Childhood is seen as the origin of personhood, its “code” that calls for interpretation...
GOGOL: ACADEMIC AND COMPLETE
The ever-increasing international interest to Gogol explains the necessity of publishing a new edition of his works. The present Complete Collection of Gogol’s Works and Letters is an academic edition prepared and publ...