30. Casanovas Heimfahrt
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n en enterenenen aen den den aen A GAL
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MODIFYING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
CASANOMAS-HOMECoMiNg. By Arthur Schnitzler. —
Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul. 8vo. 100 pages.
Privately printed for subscribers only.
HERE is one species of poet who, if he quarrels with his mis¬
4 tress in the morning—supposing that poets still possess such
lovely baggage—writes a poem that day on quarrelling with his
mistress; whereas, if he had been awakened by a piano playing next
door, he would have composed some Variations on Being Awakened
by a Piano. In a much broader way, Schnitzler’s procedure has
about it something analogous to this. Since as a much younger
man, that is, Schnitzler wrote Anatol and Reigen, as an older man
he writes Casanova’s Homecoming. If this method succeeds, which
it seems to have done in Schnitzler’s case, the artist must have one
highly consoling thought as he looks back over the range of his pro¬
ductions: he has made the world observe with interest the milestones
of his own personal journey.
Casanova himself, belonging to a rather more glorious century,
and one which could not go sour on the scientific dethronement of
man, found the meditation of his earlier Jougzes an occupation of
such a delightful nature that he simply could not help retailing them
for everyone. For, as he explains in his capacity as a somewhat
facile philosopher, the joys of his past are still with him because he
can live chem again in his memory, whereas the pains are no longer
operative since he is so conscious of their being gone. But then,
Casanova was not particularly interested in the Orphic, that pecu¬
liar pudency which was to capture the following century and which
manifested itself in the tendency to qualify to the point of disinte¬
gration, to behold with a divided attitude, thus feeling ashamed.
He was content with his facile philosophy.
The comparison is inevitable, since in Casanova’s Homecoming
Schnitzler sees so markedly nineteenth century an ending for so
eighteenth century a celebrity. Where Casanova himself—if we
take him at his word—found a perfect satisfaction in recalling an
adventurous past which he could no longer duplicate—Schnitzler
box 4/10
n en enterenenen aen den den aen A GAL
24
2
MODIFYING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
CASANOMAS-HOMECoMiNg. By Arthur Schnitzler. —
Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul. 8vo. 100 pages.
Privately printed for subscribers only.
HERE is one species of poet who, if he quarrels with his mis¬
4 tress in the morning—supposing that poets still possess such
lovely baggage—writes a poem that day on quarrelling with his
mistress; whereas, if he had been awakened by a piano playing next
door, he would have composed some Variations on Being Awakened
by a Piano. In a much broader way, Schnitzler’s procedure has
about it something analogous to this. Since as a much younger
man, that is, Schnitzler wrote Anatol and Reigen, as an older man
he writes Casanova’s Homecoming. If this method succeeds, which
it seems to have done in Schnitzler’s case, the artist must have one
highly consoling thought as he looks back over the range of his pro¬
ductions: he has made the world observe with interest the milestones
of his own personal journey.
Casanova himself, belonging to a rather more glorious century,
and one which could not go sour on the scientific dethronement of
man, found the meditation of his earlier Jougzes an occupation of
such a delightful nature that he simply could not help retailing them
for everyone. For, as he explains in his capacity as a somewhat
facile philosopher, the joys of his past are still with him because he
can live chem again in his memory, whereas the pains are no longer
operative since he is so conscious of their being gone. But then,
Casanova was not particularly interested in the Orphic, that pecu¬
liar pudency which was to capture the following century and which
manifested itself in the tendency to qualify to the point of disinte¬
gration, to behold with a divided attitude, thus feeling ashamed.
He was content with his facile philosophy.
The comparison is inevitable, since in Casanova’s Homecoming
Schnitzler sees so markedly nineteenth century an ending for so
eighteenth century a celebrity. Where Casanova himself—if we
take him at his word—found a perfect satisfaction in recalling an
adventurous past which he could no longer duplicate—Schnitzler