—.—.—
box 36/3
Panphlets offprints
ARTHUR SCHNITZLER
595
she leaves behind the veil which betrays her secret. Her
own brother Francesco deals her death-blow, and the duke,
who is haunted by the beauty of Filippo's verse in praise
of Teresina, orders Beatrice and the poet to be buried
together. Beatrice is to be honoured among women,
because Filippo has loved and died for her. The spirit of
the Renaissance is condensed in this piece, just as the
spirit of the Revolution is crowded into the Grüne Kataau.
Technically speaking, it has qualities of the most recent
movement in drama. Like writers so diverse as Verhaeren
and Thomas Hardy, Schnitzler is sensible of the dynamic
force of the crowd—witness the street scene in Act II,
or the banquet scene in Act IV—and his minute observa¬
tion includes the perception of mystical elements. This
combination of the obvious and the latent is, of course,
the essence of drama, and it justifies Schnitzler’s claim to
high rank. His Beatrice, in this like Dante’s, stands for
the Heart’s Desire, only she is the embodiment of an
#irdische Glück. Superficially a poor girl whom a ducal
marriage must necessarily dazzle, she typifies also that
mysterious female element which men have sometimes
confounded with the spirit of evil itself. In her inhuman
callousness she scems to symbolise too the indifference of
Fortune, presenting the cup of Happiness only to with¬
draw it from the lips of tantalised mortals. But the poet
Filippo shines through the piece with an even more dazzling
light than Beatrice herself. The duke sends for him to
grace his court, and, tyrant though he is, acknowledges a
poet’s right to refuse a prince; the Florentine courtesans,
Isabella and Lucrezia, come to Bologna to seek him;
Andrea, the brother of Teresina, accepts his strange con¬
fession of vileness, yet does himself, rather than Filippo,
to death; and Beatrice returns, like moth to candle, though
he has put her away with cruel contempt.
Beautiful and curious as Der Schleier der Beatrice is in
many passages, and full as it is of that haunting sense of the
eaer u
box 36/3
Panphlets offprints
ARTHUR SCHNITZLER
595
she leaves behind the veil which betrays her secret. Her
own brother Francesco deals her death-blow, and the duke,
who is haunted by the beauty of Filippo's verse in praise
of Teresina, orders Beatrice and the poet to be buried
together. Beatrice is to be honoured among women,
because Filippo has loved and died for her. The spirit of
the Renaissance is condensed in this piece, just as the
spirit of the Revolution is crowded into the Grüne Kataau.
Technically speaking, it has qualities of the most recent
movement in drama. Like writers so diverse as Verhaeren
and Thomas Hardy, Schnitzler is sensible of the dynamic
force of the crowd—witness the street scene in Act II,
or the banquet scene in Act IV—and his minute observa¬
tion includes the perception of mystical elements. This
combination of the obvious and the latent is, of course,
the essence of drama, and it justifies Schnitzler’s claim to
high rank. His Beatrice, in this like Dante’s, stands for
the Heart’s Desire, only she is the embodiment of an
#irdische Glück. Superficially a poor girl whom a ducal
marriage must necessarily dazzle, she typifies also that
mysterious female element which men have sometimes
confounded with the spirit of evil itself. In her inhuman
callousness she scems to symbolise too the indifference of
Fortune, presenting the cup of Happiness only to with¬
draw it from the lips of tantalised mortals. But the poet
Filippo shines through the piece with an even more dazzling
light than Beatrice herself. The duke sends for him to
grace his court, and, tyrant though he is, acknowledges a
poet’s right to refuse a prince; the Florentine courtesans,
Isabella and Lucrezia, come to Bologna to seek him;
Andrea, the brother of Teresina, accepts his strange con¬
fession of vileness, yet does himself, rather than Filippo,
to death; and Beatrice returns, like moth to candle, though
he has put her away with cruel contempt.
Beautiful and curious as Der Schleier der Beatrice is in
many passages, and full as it is of that haunting sense of the
eaer u