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Panphlets offnrints
ARTHUR SCHNITZLER
T is, as it were, an accident that the same language
Ashould be used in Bavaria, Austria, Prussia and
Silesia; a fortunate accident, like that to which we owe
the French of Macterlinck. We are apt to forget that
6literary Germany' includes two empires and many states,
that a common tongue in cities so diverse as Munich, Frank¬
furt, Vienna and Berlin conccals and expresses more than
provincial disparities of sentiment and outlock. Vienna,
the Paris of German-speaking peoples, contrasts with Berlin
in many more important ways than in the substitution of
the pleasant sound* Mädel' for the northern“ Mädchen.
The dramatist Arthur Schnitzler, born in 1862, is a typical
Viennese; his choice of topic, his method, and style
are mor“ in the French than in the German tradition.
Trained as a doctor, he first came before the public
with a brilliant scries of dialogucs. In Anatol (1803), he
sketched the carcer of a fascinating Don Juan, a type we
maysuppose common among young Viennese of the wealthier
class, who flits from one Aairon to another, always in earnest
—for the moment—be the object of his affections a“ süsses
Mädel?' or married woman, a little actress or a lady of
more imposing pretensions among those “one does not
marry.“ Regen, a collection of witty dialogues almost
equally fine, presents the relations between such different
kinds of women and men of various types, from the youth
beginning a dissipated carcer to the married rake. These
dialogues were followed in 180s by Ließelei, one of
587
—.—
K