This thesis will introduce the Viennese Modernism from the background of social and aesthetic changes at the turn of the 20th century. First will be outlined the social situation around 1900 and a position of bourgeois class in this society, because this class is where the culture of Viennese Modernism came from. From this social status as well as numerous scandals of modern art in this conservative society will be explained the organization of the cultural life of the young generation of artists. Furthermore there will also be introduced the Modernism in painting, architecture and music by their major artists. Similarly, in literature will be presented Hermann Bahr as an organizer of the literary group Young Vienna and his biggest opponent Karl Kraus, the satirist of his time. Thematically, the work of the authors of Young Vienna is divided into three areas, namely into the image of the society, which is mainly reflected in the work of Arthur Schnitzler and Peter Altenberg, aestheticism, which is also the subject of the most important works by Leopold Andrian, Richard Beer-Hofmann and the early dramas of Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The last theme is Chandos-Brief, written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which is a document of the language crisis in this time.

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.

There exists between lyric poetry and music a bond that is at once tangible and grounded in practice, and yet that is indeterminate, a matter of perception as much as theory. From Graeco-Roman antiquity to the modern day, lyrical forms have brought together music and text in equal partnership: in archaic Greece, music and lyric poetry were inextricably (now irrecoverably) coupled; when lyric poetry flowered in the eighteenth century, composers harnessed text to music in order to create the new and fully integrated genre of Lieder; and in our contemporary age, the connection between word and music is perhaps most keenly felt in pop music and song 'lyrics'. In 2016, the conferral of the Nobel Prize for Literature on Bob Dylan brought to wider public attention the nature of lyric's poetical-musical bond: can Dylan be considered a poet if the meaning, syntax and expression of his words are dependent upon music? Is music supplementary to the words or are the two so harnessed that the music is in fact a facet of the poetic expression? The connection between music and poetry is perfectly clear in such integrated lyric forms as these, but a more indeterminate connection can also be felt in 'purely' musical or poetic works - or at least in the way that we perceive them - as our postRomantic, adjectival use of the word 'lyrical' shows. Describing music as lyrical often suggests that it carries an extra-musical significance, a deeply felt emotion, something akin to verbal expression, while a lyrical poem brings with it an emotive aurality and a certain musicality. Text and music of lyrical quality may, therefore, invoke the other for the purpose of expression and emotion so long as our understanding of lyric forms remains conditioned by the appreciation of an implied music-poetry relationship This thesis works within the overlap of music and poetry in order to explore the particular lyric voice of Catullus in the context of his twentieth-century musical reception. Whilst some of Catullus's poems may have been performed musically, what we know of poetry circulation, publication and recitation in first-century BCE Rome suggests that the corpus was essentially textual. Nevertheless, Catullus's poetry was set to music centuries later, not in reconstruction of an ancient model, but in new expression, suggesting not only that composers of the twentieth century found themes in Catullus's poetry that resonated in their own contemporary world but that they found a particular musicality, something in the poetry that lent itself to musical form. I argue that it is in these works of reception that we can most clearly identify the essence of Catullan lyricism. Moreover, by considering the process of reception, this thesis is able to take a broader view of lyric, identifying traits and characteristics that are common to both music and poetry, thus transcending the boundaries of individual art forms in order to consider the genre in larger, interdisciplinary terms.

Cette thèse pense la place des figures littéraires (le Cantique des cantiques, Kierkegaard, Hofmannsthal) et cinématographiques (Matador d'Almodóvar) de la séduction dans la relation entre le soi et l'autre. Elle interroge le rapport au sacré et à la transcendance que pose l'écriture de la séduction. Dans le premier chapitre, les frontières établies entre littérature et philosophie (personnage conceptuel, figure esthétique) sont interrogées à travers les figures de la séduction. À ces figures sont associées les figures de matadors, qui permettent de penser la violence extrême de la séduction et l'instant au cours duquel la conscience ne peut plus se dédoubler. Le deuxième chapitre est une réflexion, à partir des figures du maître et de l'esclave, sur le désir et la conscience de soi et de l'autre dans la séduction. Les figures tauromachiques exposent le sacrifice à l'œuvre dans la séduction. Le dialogue est ici pensé au sein de la séduction, pour saisir la place de celle-ci dans la formation de la pensée. Le troisième chapitre développe le rapport entre le soi, l'autre et le monde qu'établit la séduction. Le dandysme permet d'approcher la tension entre la matière et l'esprit que posent la séduction et son écriture. Le dialogue à l'œuvre dans la séduction est présenté comme un espace de formation. La séduction est envisagée comme séduction éthique, quête de la bonne distance, exercice spirituel. La syncope, le duende, l'extase sont décrits comme des états de conscience où la distance entre le soi et le monde, le soi et l'autre, l'esprit et la matière s'abolit. À partir de ces états, l'ouverture vers l'infini et vers la transcendance que peut poser la séduction est exposée. Dans le quatrième chapitre, la séduction est pensée comme le parfum du sacré, à travers une lecture du Cantique des cantiques. Par la séduction, l'importance du corps dans le sacré est soulignée. La place du secret et de la foi dans la séduction, dans le sacré et dans le littéraire est étudiée. La séduction permet une plongée érotique dans le monde et dans le réel, par les figures et par les images qu'elle déploie. Le savoir de la séduction est un parcours, savoir du corps et de l'esprit. / This thesis reflects on the place of literary (Kierkegaard, Hofmannsthal, The Song of Songs) and cinematic (Matador d'Almodóvar) figures of seduction in the relation between the self and the other. It explores the connection to transcendence and the sacred inscribed in writings on seduction. In the first chapter, the figures of seduction help us put into question the boundaries between literature and philosophy (conceptual persona and aesthetic figure). The figures of bullfighters, associated with the figures of seducers, present the extreme violence of seduction and the instant when consciousness can no longer be split in two. The second chapter is a reflexion, through the figures of the master and the slave, on desire, consciousness of the self and the other in the relationship of seduction. The figures of bullfighters manifest the sacrifice in seduction. Dialogue, considered at the heart of seduction itself, reveals the importance of seduction in the process of thinking. The third chapter develops the bond established by seduction between the self, the other and the world. In the writings of seduction, dandyism shows the tension between mind and matter. The dialogue at work in seduction opens a space of education. Seduction is viewed as an ethical process, the search for an appropriate distance, a spiritual exercise. Loss of consciousness, duende and ecstasy are described as states of consciousness that abolish the distance between self and world, self and other, and mind and matter. Through these states, seduction brings about an opening to the infinite and transcendence. Finally, seduction is defined as the perfume of the sacred through a reading of The Song of Songs. Through seduction, the importance of the body in the sacred is underscored. The place of secrecy and faith in seduction, the sacred and literature is examined. Seduction enables an erotic immersion in the world, in the real, through the figures and images of seduction. The knowledge of seduction is a process, a knowledge of body and mind.

The thesis treats the subject of how the work of Max Picard, Rainer Maria Rilke and Jan Zahradníček relate. Its unifying element is the motif of salvation, its negative and positive aspect. Picard, Rilke, and Zahradníček perceive the world overfilled with technology and become witnesses of dehumanisation of humans and the related destruction of speech. Their work mirrors this decomposition, but it alongside offers a positive counter movement, an alternative to the age of dominion of technology. A comparative analysis of the specific understanding of the two aspects of salvation also casts light on the reception of Max Picard in their work. The first part deals with the analysis of Heidegger's essence (Wesen) of modern technology (Gestell) and the possibility of alternative revealing (poiésis). It renders the transformation of a human beings and their relationship to things, a transformation diagnosed by Picard, Rilke, and Zahradníček in their work. It thus proposes a context for the observed motif of salvation. The introduction of the first part accounts for a treatise on the loss of a thing which is linked to the penetration of technology and on salvation consisting in paying heed to the inconspicuous state of affairs. The second part opens with the reception of Picard's book Hilter in Our Selves...

Cette thèse pense la place des figures littéraires (le Cantique des cantiques, Kierkegaard, Hofmannsthal) et cinématographiques (Matador d'Almodóvar) de la séduction dans la relation entre le soi et l'autre. Elle interroge le rapport au sacré et à la transcendance que pose l'écriture de la séduction. Dans le premier chapitre, les frontières établies entre littérature et philosophie (personnage conceptuel, figure esthétique) sont interrogées à travers les figures de la séduction. À ces figures sont associées les figures de matadors, qui permettent de penser la violence extrême de la séduction et l'instant au cours duquel la conscience ne peut plus se dédoubler. Le deuxième chapitre est une réflexion, à partir des figures du maître et de l'esclave, sur le désir et la conscience de soi et de l'autre dans la séduction. Les figures tauromachiques exposent le sacrifice à l'œuvre dans la séduction. Le dialogue est ici pensé au sein de la séduction, pour saisir la place de celle-ci dans la formation de la pensée. Le troisième chapitre développe le rapport entre le soi, l'autre et le monde qu'établit la séduction. Le dandysme permet d'approcher la tension entre la matière et l'esprit que posent la séduction et son écriture. Le dialogue à l'œuvre dans la séduction est présenté comme un espace de formation. La séduction est envisagée comme séduction éthique, quête de la bonne distance, exercice spirituel. La syncope, le duende, l'extase sont décrits comme des états de conscience où la distance entre le soi et le monde, le soi et l'autre, l'esprit et la matière s'abolit. À partir de ces états, l'ouverture vers l'infini et vers la transcendance que peut poser la séduction est exposée. Dans le quatrième chapitre, la séduction est pensée comme le parfum du sacré, à travers une lecture du Cantique des cantiques. Par la séduction, l'importance du corps dans le sacré est soulignée. La place du secret et de la foi dans la séduction, dans le sacré et dans le littéraire est étudiée. La séduction permet une plongée érotique dans le monde et dans le réel, par les figures et par les images qu'elle déploie. Le savoir de la séduction est un parcours, savoir du corps et de l'esprit. / This thesis reflects on the place of literary (Kierkegaard, Hofmannsthal, The Song of Songs) and cinematic (Matador d'Almodóvar) figures of seduction in the relation between the self and the other. It explores the connection to transcendence and the sacred inscribed in writings on seduction. In the first chapter, the figures of seduction help us put into question the boundaries between literature and philosophy (conceptual persona and aesthetic figure). The figures of bullfighters, associated with the figures of seducers, present the extreme violence of seduction and the instant when consciousness can no longer be split in two. The second chapter is a reflexion, through the figures of the master and the slave, on desire, consciousness of the self and the other in the relationship of seduction. The figures of bullfighters manifest the sacrifice in seduction. Dialogue, considered at the heart of seduction itself, reveals the importance of seduction in the process of thinking. The third chapter develops the bond established by seduction between the self, the other and the world. In the writings of seduction, dandyism shows the tension between mind and matter. The dialogue at work in seduction opens a space of education. Seduction is viewed as an ethical process, the search for an appropriate distance, a spiritual exercise. Loss of consciousness, duende and ecstasy are described as states of consciousness that abolish the distance between self and world, self and other, and mind and matter. Through these states, seduction brings about an opening to the infinite and transcendence. Finally, seduction is defined as the perfume of the sacred through a reading of The Song of Songs. Through seduction, the importance of the body in the sacred is underscored. The place of secrecy and faith in seduction, the sacred and literature is examined. Seduction enables an erotic immersion in the world, in the real, through the figures and images of seduction. The knowledge of seduction is a process, a knowledge of body and mind.

Zugl.: Berlin, Humboldt-Univ., Magisterarbeit, 2001

L'objet de cette thèse est de mettre en lumière les interrogations éthiques, métaphysiques et esthétiques qui accompagnent la production des œuvres de maturité de !'écrivain autrichien Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Après avoir rappelé ses hésitations initiales entre des conceptions du monde et de l'existence distinctes, ce travail envisage les deux versions de la Femme sans ombre. Cette œuvre offre une première expression de son esthétique de maturité dont elle éclaire aussi les fondements métaphysiques. L'expérience de la Première Guerre mondiale, analysée dans le troisième chapitre, conduit Hofmannsthal à élargir le champ de ses réflexions. Son œuvre dramatique devient l'illustration des principes éthiques devant régler les échanges entre les membres d'une même société ainsi qu'entre les peuples d'Europe. Le Grand Théâtre du monde à Salzbourg, dont l'examen occupe le quatrième chapitre, pose les linéaments d'une éthique sociale inspirée des principes de la doctrine sociale de l’Église. La tragédie La Tour, qui est analysée dans le cinquième chapitre, esquisse quant à elle une éthique de l'action politique. Son but est de contribuer au maintien de la paix en Europe tout en aidant les peuples à s'élever à un degré supérieur d'humanité. / This thesis aims at highlighting the ethical, metaphysical and aesthetic questions that arise in the mature works of the Austrian author Hugo von Hofmannsthal. After having dealt with Hofmannsthal's original dilemma between opposing conceptions of the world and of his own existence, this work considers the two versions of The Woman without a Shadow. This opus is the first expression at maturity of his aesthetic whose underlying metaphysical foundation it enlightens.The experience of First World War, subject of our third chapter, compelled Hofmannsthal to widen the scope of his thoughts. His later plays illustrate which ethical conducts should rule individuals in a given society as well as between the peoples in Europe. The Salzburg Great World Theaterwhich is the focus of our fourth chapter, sets the pattern of his social ethics inspired by the principles of the social doctrine of the Church. As for The Tower, a tragedy which we will deeply analyse in our fifth chapter, it sketches his ethics for political action. The purpose of this play is indeed to advocate peace in Europe while helping nations to achieve higher standard of Humanity.

Au début du XXe siècle, la scène européenne est marquée par une recherche de nouvelles formes d’expression théâtrale, qui coïncide avec un refus du matérialisme. Le Sublime comme conscience de la dignité humaine, tel qu’il fut défini par Schiller, prend de l’importance : rempart face au changement perpétuel qui caractérise la condition humaine, le Sublime devient solidaire d’une conscience de l’Histoire et confère à l’homme une part infime d’éternité. Les efforts de W. B. Yeats pour fonder une communauté irlandaise à l’Abbey Theatre, de Max Reinhardt et de Hugo v. Hofmannsthal pour donner naissance au Festival de Salzbourg, mais aussi le projet de Romain Rolland d’un « Théâtre du Peuple », ou encore le théâtre de Richard Beer-Hofmann qui vise à réunir les individus par la mémoire d’un passé commun, manifestent la mission attribuée au théâtre. Les quatre auteurs donnent une réponse aux forces destructrices de leur temps en créant un théâtre de la dignité humaine où l’héroïsme sublime subit une métamorphose grâce à une nouvelle valeur : la compassion. L’imagination qui la rend possible devient essentielle à la dramaturgie du Sublime. Étudié en tant que principe philosophique et dramaturgique, le Sublime révèle alors sa filiation avec l’opéra et le mélodrame. Leurs interférences, déjà présentes chez Schiller, témoignent de la volonté d’élever les spectateurs au-dessus du quotidien grâce à une dramaturgie visionnaire fondée sur l’aspiration à une réalité supérieur. / European drama at the beginning of the 20th century was in search of new forms of artistic expression. In this context which coincides with the rejection of materialism, the Sublime as consciousness of human dignity gained in importance. A bulwark against the perpetual and inevitable succession of human life, the Sublime as defined by Schiller more than a century earlier attained equality with the awareness of History, lending to humankind an element of eternity. The efforts of W.B. Yeats to restore a sense of Irish community at the Abbey Theatre, those of Max Reinhardt and Hugo von Hofmannsthal who created the Salzburg Festival, but also Romain Rolland’s project of a « People’s Theatre » as well as Richard Beer-Hofmann’s plays which integrated the memory of the past, all reveal the reconciliatory function newly conferred on drama. These four authors found an answer to the destructive forces of their time by creating a drama of human dignity in which sublime heroism shifts through compassion. Its source, imagination, plays an essential role in the dramaturgy of the Sublime. The examination of the Sublime as a philosophical and dramatic principle elucidates its relationship to both opera and melodrama. The overlapping of genres can already be noticed in Schiller’s plays and proves the intention of raising the audience above the daily round, thanks to a visionary dramaturgy, based on the longing for a higher reality.

My D.Phil, dissertation sheds new light on German literary decadence around 1900, its universal concepts, plurality of discourses and poetic transformations. The heuristic value of my dissertation is a refined differentiation of Dekadenz which reconstructs the literary history of the concept and for the first time proposes specific poetic constellations. In chapter 1, decadence is reviewed with its rich research heritage and introduced as a decisive concept and discourse of aesthetic modernism. Although much has been written on decadence, the concept is clearly in need of scholarly reconsideration. I argue that decadence is not only a vague epochal construct and an ensemble of motifs, but also encompasses discourses, universal concepts and a versatile literary style. In view of the stylistic eclecticism around 1900, I argue that decadence is a dynamic and malleable concept which can be combined with other aesthetic styles, movements and philosophical contexts depending on the specific author. Chapter 2 contextualizes Dekadenz from its etymology and central discourses to its universal concepts. Etymologically derived from the Latin verb de-cadere decadence signifies a downward movement and a figure of fragmentation. It evokes cultural and political decline especially that of the Roman Empire (décadence romaine) and undergoes various aesthetic transformations (1857-1894). After touching upon the precursors Baudelaire (1857), Bourget (1883) and Bahr (1889-1894), I dwell on Nietzsche to demonstrate the philosophically complex German double evaluation of decadence. I derive three universal concepts from Nietzsche (health vs. sickness, endings vs. new beginnings, fragmentation vs. wholeness) which are crucial to my literary analysis. My comprehensive literary analysis centers on three specific poetic constellations of decadence between late realism and aesthetic modernism. Chapter 3 illuminates Mann's spätrealistische Dekadenz (1894-1924) with his (Nietzschean) double evaluations. Transformations of decadence are shown in his early novellas, Buddenbrooks, Der Tod in Venedig and Der Zauberberg. Chapter 4 illustrates Hofmannsthal's ästhetizistische Dekadenz (1891-1902) in his early essays, his prose fragment Age of Innocence and Das Märchen der 672. Nacht. A significant transformation of decadence is illuminated in Ein Brief (1902), where Nietzschean decadence is concentrated and tentatively overturned. In chapter 5, Rilke's modernistische Dekadenz (1898-1910) is shown from his early fragment Ewald Tragy to his only novel Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge. His novel attempts a poetic 'revaluation of all values' and culminates in the emergence of a genuinely modernist decadence.