NP: Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Ein Brief

[Glenn Scheper]

I think this unusual author may interest P readers.


To me, then, it is as though my body consists of nought but ciphers which give 
me the key to everything; or as if we could enter into a new and hopeful 
relationship with the whole of existence if only we began to think with the 
heart. - Hugo von Hofmannsthal, "The Letter of Lord Chandos"
  -- http://www.artcritical.com/stone-richards/MSRwollheim.htm
  m stone-richards tribute to richard wollheim


In his poetry Hofmannsthal used three major metaphors for life: the dream, the 
game, the drama. He viewed the poet as a synthesis of man the dreamer, man the 
actor, and man the gameplayer.

Hofmannsthal's most famous essay was EIN BRIEF (1905), a fictive letter of 
Philip, Lord Chandos, the younger son of the Earl of Bath, to Lord Francis Bacon 
(1561-1626), the English statesman, historian, and philosopher. Chandos 
confesses a major philosophical crisis. "I found it impossible to express an 
opinion on the affairs at Court, the events in Parliament, or whatever you 
wish." He has lost completely the ability to understand the meaning of the words 
and to think or to speak of anything coherently. Subsequently all social and 
cultural constructs are called into doubt. "The nature of our epoch," he wrote, 
"is multiplicity and indeterminacy." What other generations believed to be firm, 
he considered das Gleitende (the slipping, the sliding).
  -- http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hugohof.htm
  Hugo von Hofmannsthal


This letter reflects the growing distrust of and dissatisfaction with language 
that so characterizes the Modern era, and Chandos's dissolving personality is 
not only individual but societal.
  -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_von_Hofmannsthal
  Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


This little book is rather difficult to review, for any number of reasons, not 
the least of which being that what are called the "stories" herein are not 
really stories at all in the common sense of the word but rather haunting, 
oneiric vignettes which end as abruptly as they begin - To call them 
impressionistic would be not only an understatement, but not quite right. - All 
the characters limned here live in a sort of dreamworld always accompanied by 
that indefinable, unlocalised sense of dread and foreboding one has in a dream. 
Thus, sometimes it seems to come from a well, or a barrel, or a golden apple or, 
in two instances, an encounter with a sort of doppelganger. It's as if the 
author had discovered some subaqueous realm lying just under normal sense 
experience and described it with the acute realism of Chekhov (of whom the 
intense detail in the stories reminded me) combined with the inner horror that 
Poe expresses at his best...except Hoffmannstahl expresses it better, but he 
couldn't bring himself (apparently) to complete a story of the kind that Poe 
wrote. Rather, we have these numinous dream-sequences filled with unnamable 
dread. It's as if, as Gerard De Nerval wrote of himself shortly before he 
committed suicide, the dream world was taking over "reality" in the author's 
mind, or, rather, has taken over. The "letter", tacked on to the end of these 
stories, supposedly explaining them, is interesting, but really doesn't tell us 
anything we can't glean from the stories. It's a manifesto of sorts, basically 
stating (and I simplify here) that language is incapable of explaining the 
numinous. Hoffmannstahl was something of an expert on light, and some of his 
best descriptions involve the effect of the lighting that lends a scene its 
all-encompassing "aura". In this, he very much reminds me of Emily Dickinson. I 
was constantly reminded while reading of her lines: A certain slant of light- 
Winter afternoons- Oppresses with the heft Of cathedral tunes. Well, I shan't go 
on. I'll leave the prospective reader with a quote from the narrator of "Tale of 
Two Couples" to give him/her and idea of what to expect: "I walked along like 
someone in a dream who is being touched by the atmosphere of his life and by the 
suspicion that he is dreaming." P.112
  -- http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Chandos-Letter-Syrens/dp/0140389202
  Amazon.com: The Lord Chandos Letter (Syrens): Books: Hugo Von Hofmannsthal,Michael Hofmann


Hofmannsthal's most famous work of short fiction is probably Reitergeschichte 
(1908), the story of one Wachmeister Anton Lerch.

Later, Lerch meets his double. The interpretation of this scene unclear; some 
claim the double is from his future, a warning, whereas others claim that it is 
from his past - an opportunity to return to a life of duty.
  -- http://www.skrause.org/hofmannsthal/prose.htm
  Hofmannsthal: Prose Works


    _Ein Brief_ came at age 31, about when the Christ experience should kick in:

Listen here:
  -- http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/598736
  PodcastDirectory | Episode: Hugo von Hofmannsthal: The Lord Chandos Letter Podcast

Yours truly,
Glenn Scheper
http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
Copyleft(!) Forward freely.