Arthur Schnitzler
born May 15, 1862, Vienna, Austria
died Oct. 21, 1931, Vienna
Austrian playwright and novelist known
for his psychological dramas that
dissect turn-of-the-century Viennese
bourgeois life.
Schnitzler, the son of a well-known
Jewish physician, took a medical degree
and practiced medicine for much of his
life, interesting himself particularly
in psychiatry. He made his name as a
writer with Anatol (1893), a series of
seven one-act plays depicting the casual
amours of a wealthy young Viennese
man-about-town. Although these plays
were much less probing than his later
works, they revealed a gift of
characterization, a power to evoke
moods, and a detached, often
melancholic, humour.
Schnitzler’s Reigen (1897;
Merry-Go-Round), a cycle of 10 dramatic
dialogues, depicts the heartlessness of
men and women in the grip of lust.
Though it gave rise to scandal even in
1920, when it was finally performed, in
1950 it was made into a successful
French film, La Ronde, by Max Ophüls.
Schnitzler was adept at creating a
single, precisely shaded mood in a
one-act play or short story. He often
evoked the atmosphere of corrupt
self-deception he saw in the last years
of the Habsburg empire. He explored
human psychology, portraying egotism in
love, fear of death, the complexities of
the erotic life, and the morbidity of
spirit induced by a weary introspection.
He depicted the hollowness of the
Austrian military code of honour in the
plays Liebelei (1896; Playing with Love)
and Freiwild (1896; “Free Game”). His
most successful novel, Leutnant Gustl
(1901; None but the Brave), dealing with
a similar theme, was the first European
masterpiece written as an interior
monologue. In Flucht in die Finsternis
(1931; Flight into Darkness) he showed
the onset of madness, stage by stage. In
the play Professor Bernhardi (1912) and
the novel Der Weg ins Freie (1908; The
Road to the Open) he analyzed the
position of the Jews in Austria. His
other works include plays, novels,
collections of stories, and several
medical tracts.
