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The last decade before the turn of the century was distinguished by a virtually unparalleled diversity of artistic movements. These broke with traditional ways of making of art, both stylistically and as to subject matter. The most important and defining trend — especially for literature — was the decay of naturalism and its replacement by impressionism and symbolism, though realist and nationalistic, even racist literature influenced the period as well. Heimatkunst (art idealizing rural life) and Arbeiterdichtung (writing by or about workers) arose at the same time, making the decade a conglomerate of several movements often running counter to each other: Heimatkunst, a fusion of political values approximating the later National Socialist ideals, was the climax of an anti-modern movement in the 1890s that abhorred the modern city and urban life. Arbeiterdichtung attacked the exploitation of workers by the modern economic system. Contrary to what the term suggests, Arbeiterdichtung was not exclusively written by members of the working class but was also produced by bourgeois authors. As can be seen, all of these movements were part of the broader, European literary landscape. Symbolism, impressionism, and the literature of decadence were international manifestations that crossed the boundaries between countries and the arts.
Impressionism
Literary impressionism especially owed much to French impressionist painting, a style that primarily confined itself to the still-life painting, to portraits, and landscapes. Artists such as Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) and Claude Monet (1840–1926) turned away from conventional subjects and left their studios to paint in the open air.
This book of new essays by widely-published scholars from the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Austria examines the artistic, social, political, and historical continuities and discontinuities in Viennese literature during the periods around 1900 and 2000. It takes its impetus from the idea that both turns of the century are turning points in the development of Austrian literature and history. The essays show that in both periods literature not only reflects societal conditions and political issues, but also serves to criticize them. Ernst Grabovszki's introduction sets the context of literature in Vienna in 1900 and 2000, and is followed by essays exploring the following topics bearing on the city's literature across the two periods: writing about Vienna (Janet Stewart); art and architecture (Douglas Crow); psychoanalysis and the literature of Vienna (Thomas Paul Bonfiglio); poetry in Vienna from Hofmannsthal to Jandl (Rüdiger Görner); Austrian cinema culture (Willy Riemer); Austrian-Jewish culture (Hillary Hope Herzog and Todd Herzog); Austrian women's writing (Dagmar C. G. Lorenz); Karl Kraus and Robert Menasse as critical observers of their times (Geoffrey C. Howes); and Venice as mediator between the Viennese metropolis and the provinces (John Pizer). The figures treated range from Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Sigmund Freud, Theodor Herzl, Karl Kraus, Peter Altenberg, Franz Grillparzer, Joseph Roth, Bertha von Suttner, and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach in the earlier fin de siècle to Elfriede Jelinek, Robert Schindel, Robert Menasse, Josef Haslinger, Ernst Jandl, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, and Marlene Streeruwitz in the current period. Ernst Grabovszki teaches at the University of Vienna. James Hardin is professor emeritus of German at the University of South Carolina.
One who deals with fin-de-siècle Vienna is often confronted with clichés. Elisabeth Leinfellner-Rupertsberger sums it up:
Das Wien und mit ihm das Österreich der Jahrhundertwende sind zu einer Utopie im ursprünglichen Sinne des Wortes geworden, zu einem raum-und zeitlosen Mythos, einem Pandämonium mit mythischen Versatzstücken: dem guten alten Kaiser, der täglich seinen Tafelspitz ißt — so schon bei Josef Roth; dem weisen Ratgeber, Freud; der dämonischen Verführerin, Alma Mahler-Werfel; dem hauslosen Kaffeehausliteraten, Peter Altenberg; dem leutseligen Bürgermeister, der nur ein kleines bisserl antisemitisch ist, Lueger; und dem exilierten und in Österreich erst nach seinem Tod langsam bekanntgewordenen und schließlich in einer Apotheose verklärten Denker, Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Leinfellner-Rupertsberger presents the Austrian turn of the century in an ironic way as a patchwork of true but incomplete impressions, as a time that had to cope with a variety of political and social changes such as the collapse of the Habsburgian monarchy, the breaking apart of the “VielvÖlkerstaat,” and the rise of nationalism.
The articles in this book aim to explore the contrasts and similarities of both turns of the centuries around 1900 and 2000 and to show how the aesthetics of literature and its historical background have influenced each other and how they have changed during a century. They seek to sound the continuities and discontinuities in Austrian literature, especially of literature in Vienna by highlighting the city's role in the development of Austrian culture now and then.
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