Recent decades have seen an increase in feminist critiques of the works of Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872), and a growing awareness that these deal with contemporary issues around the social roles of women. This study builds on exsiting feminist-themed examinations of Grillparzer's works to show more fully how they fit into the context of calls for women's rights in nineteenth-century Austria. New interpretations of Grillparzer's heroines are made possible by considering the full spectrum of the author's intellectual interests and examining his dramas through the lenses suggested by his reading. Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen is seen in the context of the Enlightenment, and Sappho and Libussa are analysed with reference to social contract theory. Contemporary feminist approaches are combined with Schiller's thought on stadial history, and with Grillparzer's analysis of Shakespeare's Macbeth, to give new insight into Das goldene Vließ and Die Jüdin von Toledo respectively. Consideration of the lives and works of Grillparzer's female friends provides the context for my analysis, and helps define the original nature of this thesis. While several earlier studies have argued for the influence of Grillparzer's romantic interests on the construction of his heroines, sufficient attention has not been given to these heroines in the context of the intellectual women Grillparzer knew. While I do not argue that Grillparzer's heroines were influenced by the authors and other prominent women he knew, examination of the lives and works of Caroline Pichler, Betty Paoli, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Sophie Schröder and others shows that Grillparzer was on friendly terms with intellectual women throughout his career, and that all of these women were to some degree critical of the contemporary social situation of women.

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This thesis re-evaluates the work of the neglected Austrian novelist Franz Nabl. Nabl’s reputation has long been overshadowed by the prestige of Jung-Wien, denigrated by inaccurate association with the Heimatroman, and even unjustly tarnished by his appropriation during National Socialism. My work aims to correct these misconceptions, demonstrating that his best fiction merits rehabilitation not only in its own right, but also for the important questions it raises about conventional narratives of Austrian literary history. Structured chronologically, the five chapters of this thesis provide fresh analyses of Nabl’s texts, many of which have previously received only scant scholarly attention. These close readings are located in a range of relevant literary-historical and cultural contexts, illustrating that Nabl’s writing not only belongs in surprising literary company, but also that his works fit into important, yet often overlooked patterns in Austrian literary history which are often obscured by a tradition of criticism which values ‘modernism’ over ‘realism’, and privileges the aesthetically progressive over the apparently conservative. The first chapter investigates Nabl’s earliest fiction in the literary and cultural context of fin-de-siècle Vienna, revealing unexpected connections between Nabl and acknowledged modernists, such as Schnitzler and Kafka. The second and third chapters engage with Nabl’s novels, Ödhof and Das Grab des Lebendigen, establishing his status as a significant critical realist within a long tradition of Austrian works exploring unhappy family life. The fourth chapter focuses on the misleading view of Nabl as a regionalist, demonstrating that, while not all Heimat novels deserve critical condemnation, Nabl’s narratives of rural life invoke the conventions of the Heimatroman only to disappoint them. In the last chapter, I explore Nabl’s complicated relationship to National Socialism, showing that, although his involvements with the Nazis were ill-judged, Nabl was not committed to their politics and wrote only politically innocuous fiction during the regime.

Die morawische Nacht (2008) de Peter Handke représente un tournant: l’auteur y renonce à son engagement politique concernant les Balkans et il revient au « royaume de la poésie ». En reprenant des concepts de la théorie de l’espace dans les études culturelles, cette étude examine les moyens narratifs à partir desquels Handke projette une nouvelle image des Balkans. L’écrivain autrichien déconstruit son propre mythe du « Neuvième Pays » (Die Wiederholung, 1986), dont il a sans cesse défendu le concept dans les années 1990 (Eine winterliche Reise, 1996; Zurüstungen für die Unsterblichkeit, 1997; Die Fahrt im Einbaum, 1999; Unter Tränen fragend, 1999). Dans Die morawische Nacht, de fréquentes allusions et connotations nous ramènent aux œuvres antérieures, mentionnées ci-dessus. La signification et la fonction des nouvelles images des Balkans ne sont pas comprises que dans le cadre des références intertextuelles. Par l’entremise d’un maniement raffiné et ludique de l’ancien contenu et des vieilles structures, objets d’un nouvel usage, la poétique de Handke, toujours basée sur les soi-disant « Zwischenräume » (espaces intermédiaires) prouve toute sa puissance. Même si les Balkans perdent leur caractère absolu, ils continuent cependant à servir comme moyen de critique de la société moderne qui aspire cette fois à la mondialisation. Pendant que Handke réfute ironiquement sa naïveté de rechercher l’absolu dans le monde extérieur, le récit se révèle être le seul royaume où la paix et l’harmonie peuvent être créées. / Die morawische Nacht (2008) by Peter Handke marks a turning point in his oeuvre: the writer gives up his political commitment regarding the Balkans with the intent of returning to the poetical realm. Taking up concepts of cultural theory of space, this study examines the narrative means Handke uses to project a new image of the Balkans. The Austrian author destroys his own myth of the Ninth Country (Die Wiederholung, 1986), a concept he had been defending throughout the 1990s. (Eine winterliche Reise, 1996; Zurüstungen für die Unsterblichkeit, 1997; Die Fahrt im Einbaum, 1999; Unter Tränen fragend, 1999). Frequent allusions and connotations in Die morawische Nacht refer to his previous works, mentioned-above. The meaning and the purpose of the new Balkan-image can only be understood within these intertextual references. The old structural and textual elements, used in a refined and playful way, take on new functions, and Handke’s poetics, still based on the so-called “Zwischenräume” (in-between spaces), reveals all its power. Even though the Balkans are losing their absolute character, they continue to serve as a means of criticizing the modern globalized society. While Handke is leaving behind his desire to seek absolute value in the outside world, the “Realm of Narration” proves to be the only possible world where peace and harmony can be created. / Peter Handkes Die morawische Nacht (2008) stellt eine Wende innerhalb seines Werkes dar: Der Autor gibt sein politisches Engagement hinsichtlich der Balkan-Fragen auf und kehrt ins „Reich der Poesie“ zurück. Konzepte der kulturwissenschaftlichen Raumtheorie aufgreifend, untersucht diese Studie erzählerische Mittel, mit denen Handke ein neues Bild vom Balkan entwirft. Der österreichische Schriftsteller zerschlägt seinen eigenen Mythos vom Neunten Land (Die Wiederholung, 1986), dessen Konzept er in den 90er Jahren beharrlich verteidigt hat (Eine winterliche Reise, 1996; Zurüstungen für die Unsterblichkeit, 1997; Die Fahrt im Einbaum, 1999; Unter Tränen fragend, 1999). Häufige Anspielungen und Konnotationen in der Morawischen Nacht führen auf die vorangehenden, oben genannten Werke zurück. Sinn und Funktion der neuen Balkan-Bilder sind erst innerhalb dieser intertextuellen Bezüge zu verstehen. Durch einen raffinierten und spielerischen Umgang mit den alten strukturellen und inhaltlichen Elementen, die eine neue Verwendung finden, offenbart sich all die Kraft der Poetik Handkes, die nach wie vor auf den sogenannten „Zwischenräumen“ basiert. Verliert der Balkan-Raum auch seinen absoluten Charakter, so dient er doch weiter als Mittel zur Kritik an der modernen, diesmal die Globalisierung anstrebenden Gesellschaft. Indem sich Handke ironisch gegen seine Naivität, das Absolute in der Außenwelt zu suchen, wendet, erweist sich der Raum der Erzählung als einziges Reich, in dem Frieden und Harmonie zu stiften sind.

This thesis deals with different types of individuals in modern popular plays of Ödön von Horváth. In the first part the development of popular plays is outlined from its beginnings to the present, and there also is a brief description of the Vienna theaters at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. Followed by an analysis of the characters in Horváths popular plays, which are: "The Mountain Railroad", "Tales from the Vienna Wood", "Italian Night" and "Kasimir and Karoline".

This dissertation traces the development of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's attempts to find solutions to what he perceived to be the crisis of meaning in his time. I focus primarily on Hofmannsthal's fictional letters and poetological reflections from the post-lyrical phase of his career, also touching on his final drama and political speeches. In the 1990s semiotic, structuralist, and poststructuralist studies of Hofmannsthal's texts allowed critics to uncover the more radically modern dimension of his creative process and work, making possible a poetological turn in the scholarship, with critics becoming far more interested in the poetics and aesthetics of Hofmannsthal's writings. Thanks to this work, a very different image of Hofmannsthal has appeared - one that attempts to overcome the common prejudice against the author as an elitist and cultural conservative who was out of step with his time. This dissertation participates in the latest approach to Hofmannsthal's work inasmuch as it largely focuses on Hofmannsthal's self-reflexive poetological writings from the Erfundene Gespräche und Briefe and on the author's intermedial search for a language that can counteract the reification of language in a positivistic age. The central argument of this dissertation is that the crises of language, of perception, of experience and of identity that Hofmannsthal repeatedly represents in his work fundamentally express a crisis of authorship. Hofmannsthal's preoccupation with these crises reflects his increasing uncertainty about the role of the poet in a modern democratic age, in which not only the social hierarchies but also the hierarchies of knowledge are leveled. I argue that Hofmannsthal radically destabilizes the role of the poet by questioning whether the poet has a necessary role in interpreting experience for the many. But I conclude by suggesting that in an effort to keep this question alive in an age of democratic skepticism about the poet's vocation, Hofmannsthal sees the need to reassert at a rhetorical level the poet's privileged position.

Zugl.: Wien, Univ., Diss., 2004

Thesis (master's)-Universität, München. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-140).

ANNOTATION This submitted thesis is to record the picture of World War I in fiction comparing Czech and Austrian literature. Connections are supposed to be based on historical- cultural contacts and close geographical vicinity in both conceptions. A comparative study of the representative texts which relate to a specific key stage of common history should confirm or doubt these connections. In the introduction the reality of the war conflict, its main consequences and the concrete situation in Bohemian countries is outlined, which serves the purpose of depicting of the atmosphere of the period and simultaneously better understanding of the meaning of literature works. Subsequently the list of basic texts which became the firm part of the common knowledge of given problems is created and at the same time the aspect of the common thematic units is pointed out. And finally two key works of both national branches of literature were chosen and compared analytically. Both principal themes - the attitude towards war, and main motive complexes and the general way of narration are emphasized. The aim of the thesis is not to present the complete list of works dealing with war but to confront literature depiction of the war in Austria and Bohemia from comparable points of view.