VI, Allgemeine Besprechungen 1, 6, Schinnerer Early Works, Seite 3

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1. Panphlets offorints
Tke Germanic Revien
154
As can be readily seen from the bibliography given below,
there are numerous early works of Schnitzler which were
published in various periodicals of the time but have never
appeared within the covers of a book. Practically all of these
periodicals are now extinct and extremely scarce, so that most
of these early works are unknown and inaccessible, not only to
the general reading public, but even to the great majority of
scholars. Such early works of an author are rarely of striking
originality or of high literary quality. Nevertheless, students
of literature have always found it fascinating and profitable to
scrutinize the early creations of genius with a view to tracing
the author’s artistic and intellectual development and to
investigate the extent to which his youthful productions fore¬
shadow his later works. It is with this object in mind that the
present study was undertaken.:
In selecting, somewhat arbitrarily, the year 1805 as a
terminus ad quem, the writer had been guided by the fact that
it was not until after the successful performance of Liebelei at
the Burgtheater in Vienna on October 9, 1805, that Schnitzler’s
reputation as an author was definitely established. To be
sure, the publication of Anatol in 1803 was followed by Das
2 The subject has never received anything approaching adequate treatment.
A brief article entitled Arthur Schnitzler vor dem Anatol. Psychcanalytisches!'
by Theodor Reik, appeared in Pan, June 23, 1912, pp. 890-905. Apart from the
fact that this essay deals exclusively with those works which appeared in An der
schönen blauen Donau from 1880-1801, the author, a confirmed disciple of Freud,
is interested primarily in showing the relationship between Schnitzler and psycho¬
analytic theory. This also applies to those scattered references to early works of
Schnitzler in the same author’s book Arthur Schnitzler als Psycholog, Minden (West¬
falen), no date (1913). Dr. Julius Kapp, in the preface of his book entitled Artkur
Schnitzle-, Leipzig, 1012, cites as one of the reasons in justification of his undertaking,
the detailed consideration of Schnitzler’s early works. However, he mentions and
discusses only Alkandis Lied, Mein Freund Vpsilon, Amerika,“ and“ Der
Andere.“ Furthermore, beyond somewhat detailed synopses, consisting principally
of quotations, he has contributed practically nothing to a critical understanding of
the early Schnitzler. In Josef Körner’s topical analysis of Schnitzler’s works,
entitled Artkur Schnitzlers Gestalten und Probleme, Amalthea-Bücherei, XXIII.
Band, Zürich, Leipzig, Wien, 1021, the only scholarly study made of our author
that has so far appeared, and in Richard Specht, op. cif., a most s#mulating but
subjective appreciation, there are scattered references to numerous early works,
but there is no systematic, comprehensive account of them. The lack of a classified
index in each of these four major works on Schnitzler constitutes an added difficulty
for she student.
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