Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 'An Impossible Man'

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 'An Impossible Man' PDF Author: Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Publisher: MHRA
ISBN: 1781882746
Category : Austrian drama
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Hofmannsthal’s comedy An Impossible Man is by common consent considered his stage masterpiece and has assumed the status of a classic in German-speaking countries. It is a play both about the passing historical moment which marked the end of the Habsburg era, together with its culture and class structure, whilst it is also a finely gauged critique of language as the badge of that culture. The highly polished, crafted diction the playwright employs shows up language as the awed but indispensable vehicle of social communication. Hofmannsthal’s dramatic technique is comparable to Chekhov’s, since he uses conversation mainly for expository purposes with largely static effect, and by his choice of an essentially passive hero who is a problem to himself and to others. The problematic nature of language (a constant theme in Hofmannsthal’s work and most consummately expressed in A Letter of 1902) is identified with and given voice through the complicated character of the hero Hans Karl. Moral seriousness is so finely interfused with a lightness of ironic texture in this comedy that no trace of gravity remains.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 'An Impossible Man'

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 'An Impossible Man' PDF Author: Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Publisher: MHRA
ISBN: 1781882746
Category : Austrian drama
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Hofmannsthal’s comedy An Impossible Man is by common consent considered his stage masterpiece and has assumed the status of a classic in German-speaking countries. It is a play both about the passing historical moment which marked the end of the Habsburg era, together with its culture and class structure, whilst it is also a finely gauged critique of language as the badge of that culture. The highly polished, crafted diction the playwright employs shows up language as the awed but indispensable vehicle of social communication. Hofmannsthal’s dramatic technique is comparable to Chekhov’s, since he uses conversation mainly for expository purposes with largely static effect, and by his choice of an essentially passive hero who is a problem to himself and to others. The problematic nature of language (a constant theme in Hofmannsthal’s work and most consummately expressed in A Letter of 1902) is identified with and given voice through the complicated character of the hero Hans Karl. Moral seriousness is so finely interfused with a lightness of ironic texture in this comedy that no trace of gravity remains.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 'The Incorruptible Servant'

Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 'The Incorruptible Servant' PDF Author:
Publisher: MHRA
ISBN: 1839541202
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 115

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Book Description
This is the first translation into English of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s acclaimed comedy Der Unbestechliche. The Incorruptible Servant is a true comedy of action, a well-constructed, fast moving stage play cast in a traditional mould. The action is controlled by a dominant central figure of a complex make-up, somewhat reminiscent of Tartuffe but closer in portraiture to Dostoevsky’s Foma Fomich in The Village of Stepanchikovo. Theodor is cast as the masterful servant in an aristocratic Austrian country estate in the year 1912. He acquires full control of the household and cunningly manipulates his philandering young master and his mistresses in a plot set out to restore order and morality. The comedy shows the mature Hofmannsthal at the height of his achievement as a dramatist.

The Whole Difference

The Whole Difference PDF Author: Hugo Von Hofmannsthal
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400829798
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
Hugo von Hofmannsthal is one of the modern era's most important writers, but his fame as Richard Strauss's pioneering collaborator on such operas as Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau ohne Schatten has obscured his other remarkable writings: his precocious lyric poetry, inventive short fiction, keen essays, and visionary plays. The Whole Difference, which includes new translations as well as classic ones long out of print, is a fresh introduction to the enormous range of this extraordinary artist, and the most comprehensive collection of Hofmannsthal's writings in English. Selected and edited by the poet and librettist J. D. McClatchy, this collection includes early lyric poems; short prose works, including "The Tale of Night Six Hundred and Seventy-Two," "A Tale of the Cavalry," and the famous "Letter of Lord Chandos"; two full-length plays, The Difficult Man and The Tower; as well as the first act of The Cavalier of the Rose. From the glittering salons of imperial Vienna to the bloodied ruins of Europe after the Great War, the landscape of Hofmannsthal's world stretches across the extremes of experience. This collection reflects those extremes, including both the sparkling social comedy of "the difficult man" Hans Karl, so sensitive that he cannot choose between the two women he loves, and the haunting fictional letter to Francis Bacon in which Lord Chandos explains why he can no longer write. Complete with an introduction by McClatchy, this collection reveals an artist whose unusual subtlety and depth will enthrall readers.

Hugo Von Hofmannsthal

Hugo Von Hofmannsthal PDF Author: Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780691097473
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 839

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Book Description
Six pieces--three plays, three libretti, three serious works, three comic--are included here to display the range of Hofmannsthal's writings for the theater: The Cavalier of the Rose, Electra, The Salzburg Great Theatre of the World, Arabella, The Difficult Man, and The Tower. T. S. Eliot has contributed a brief note on The Tower.

Thinking German Translation

Thinking German Translation PDF Author: Margaret Rogers
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317414624
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Thinking German Translation is a comprehensive practical course in translation for advanced undergraduate students of German and postgraduate students embarking on Master’s translation programmes. Now in its third edition, this course focuses on translation as a decision-making process, covering all stages of the translation process from research, to the ‘rewriting’ of the source text in the language of translation, to the final revision process. This third edition brings the course up to date, referencing relevant research sources in Translation Studies and technological developments as appropriate, and balancing the coverage of subject matter with examples and varied exercises in a wide range of genres from both literary and specialised material. All chapters from the second edition have been extensively revised and, in many cases, restructured; new chapters have been added—literary translation; research and resources—as well as suggestions for further reading. Offering around 50 practical exercises, the course features material from a wide range of sources, including: business, economics and politics advertising, marketing and consumer texts tourism science and engineering modern literary texts and popular song the literary canon, including poetry A variety of translation issues are addressed, among them cultural differences, genre conventions, the difficult concept of equivalence, as well as some of the key differences between English and German linguistic and textual features. Thinking German Translation is essential reading for all students seriously interested in improving their translation skills. It is also an excellent foundation for those considering a career in translation. A Tutor’s Handbook offers comments and notes on the exercises for each chapter, including not only translations but also a range of other tasks, as well as some specimen answers. It is available to download from www.routledge.com/9781138920989.

Hugo Von Hofmannsthal and the Austrian Idea

Hugo Von Hofmannsthal and the Austrian Idea PDF Author: Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Publisher: Purdue University Press
ISBN: 1557535906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
A collection and translation 20 of the author's essays and addresses relating to Austrian culture.

Semantic Traces of Social Interaction from Antiquity to Early Modern Times

Semantic Traces of Social Interaction from Antiquity to Early Modern Times PDF Author: Seraina Plotke
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527509877
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
There are many methods that use historical semantic analysis as the key to unlocking an understanding of past epochs, concepts in the humanities, and socio-historical events, including: conceptual history, lexicometry and socio-historical discourse semantics. As diverse as these approaches are, stemming as they do from varying academic traditions, together they have proven that language is more than just a passive medium to transport meaning. Words and their meanings on the one hand, and the changes in those meanings on the other, influence socio-cultural structures, orders of knowledge, ideologies, and mentalities. In turn, socio-political achievements, ideological orientation, novel ways of thinking, and modifications of scientific knowledge and cultural practices inform and change the way words are used, leading to neologisms and semantic shifts as well as to expanded or narrowed meanings. Tracing the changes in the meaning of conversatio and its modern language derivatives, this book illustrates the productivity of historical semantic analysis for cultural studies.

Ways of the World-cl

Ways of the World-cl PDF Author: Robert Bechtold Heilman
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9780295801872
Category : Comedy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description


A Companion to the Works of Hugo Von Hofmannsthal

A Companion to the Works of Hugo Von Hofmannsthal PDF Author: Thomas A. Kovach
Publisher: Camden House
ISBN: 9781571132154
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
The Viennese poet, dramatist, and prose writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) was among the most celebrated men of letters in the German language at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. His early poems established his reputation as the `child prodigy' of German letters, and a few remain among the most anthologized in the German language. His early lyric dramas prompted no less a judge than T. S. Eliot to pronounce him, along with Yeats and Claudel, one of the three European writers who had done the most to revive verse drama in modern times. His critical essays attest to the subtle powers of discrimination that marked him as one of the most discerning literary critics of the day. And yet he underwent a crisis of cognition and language around 1900, and from then on turned away from poetry and lyric drama almost entirely, concentrating instead on more public forms of drama such as the libretti for Richard Strauss's operas, the plays written for the Salzburg Festival (of which he was a co-founder), and on discursive and narrative prose. The body of work that Hofmannsthal left behind at his premature death is matched in its variety, breadth, and quality by that of only a handful of German writers. And yet posterity has not been kind to his reputation: those who admired the early work for its aesthetic refinement disdained his turn to more popular forms, whereas many of those who might have been receptive to the more committed and public stance of his later work were put off by his conservative politics. This volume of new essays by top Hofmannsthal scholars re-examines his extraordinarily rich and complex body of work, assessing his stature in German and world literature in the new century. Contributors: Katherine Arens, Judith Beniston, Benjamin Bennett, Nina Berman, Joanna Bottenberg, Douglas A. Joyce, Thomas A. Kovach, Ellen Ritter, Hinrich C. Seeba, Andreas Thomasberger, W. Edgar Yates. Professor Thomas Kovach is Head of the Department of German Studies at the University of Arizona.

The Lord Chandos Letter

The Lord Chandos Letter PDF Author: Hugo Von Hofmannsthal
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590175433
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Hugo von Hoffmannsthal made his mark as a poet, as a playwright, and as the librettist for Richard Strauss’s greatest operas, but he was no less accomplished as a writer of short, strangely evocative prose works. The atmospheric stories and sketches collected here—fin-de-siècle fairy tales from the Vienna of Klimt and Freud, a number of them never before translated into English—propel the reader into a shadowy world of uncanny fates and secret desires. An aristocrat from Paris in the plague years shares a single night of passion with an unknown woman; a cavalry sergeant meets his double on the battlefield; an orphaned man withdraws from the world with his four servants, each of whom has a mysterious power over his destiny. The most influential of all of Hofmannsthal’s writings is the title story, a fictional letter to the English philosopher Francis Bacon in which Lord Chandos explains why he is no longer able to write. The “Letter” not only symbolized Hofmannsthal’s own turn away from poetry, it captured the psychological crisis of faith and language which was to define the twentieth century.