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Der Brief des Lord Chandos. Schriften zur Literatur, Kultur und Geschichte.
»Die abstrakten Worte … zerfielen mir im Munde wie modrige Pilze«: In seinem berühmten fiktiven Brief gelingt es Hugo von Hofmannsthal 1902, die Sprachzweifel seiner Epoche wie kein anderer einzukreisen. Der Text wurde deshalb schnell als »Gründungsdokument einer Sprachkrise«, »poetische Magna Charta der deutschen Literatur des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts« und als »Schlüsseltext für die Poetik des Schweigens in der literarischen Moderne« bezeichnet.
Die kritische Ausgabe liefert hilfreiche Kommentare und zeichnet die Wirkungsgeschichte dieses klassischen Werkes bis in die Gegenwart nach.
Die kritische Ausgabe liefert hilfreiche Kommentare und zeichnet die Wirkungsgeschichte dieses klassischen Werkes bis in die Gegenwart nach.
268 pages, Paperback
First published October 18, 1902
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About the author
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
453 books131 followersAustrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal established his reputation with lyric poems and a number of plays, including
Yesterday
(1891) and
Death and the Fool
(1893).
This Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist flourished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_vo...
This Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist flourished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_vo...
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April 19, 2021
INADEGUATEZZA DELLA PAROLA
Auguste Rodin: Il pensatore. 1902, Musée Rodin, Parigi.
Nel mio personale olimpo della letteratura mitteleuropea, insieme a Musil, Schnitzler, Rilke, e Kafka, c’è da sempre anche Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
Come più tardi ne L’uomo difficile (1921), qui (1902) si celebra la bancarotta della parola. La catastrofe linguistica, come la definirebbe Emanuele trevi.
Sotto la veste fittizia di una lettera (il titolo originale è il molto semplice “Ein Brief”) scritta dall’immaginario Lord Philipp Chandos all’amico e maestro Francis Bacon (come ben noto personaggio invece realmente esistito) nel 1603, non a caso in epoca barocca, il che significa scoperte scientifiche e geografiche, arte spumeggiante, qui si denuncia la condizione di crisi, angoscia, solitudine, impotenza, e infine, afasia, dell’uomo moderno, che si sente tradito dalla parola, impotente a penetrare l’essenza delle cose, ormai incapace di esprimere quel che (probabilmente) è diventato inesprimibile, la realtà non più afferrabile, appunto, indicibile.
Joseph Frank “Buster” Keaton
E quindi, lo scrivente Lord Chandos dichiara al suo mentore che abbandona la professione di scrittore perché nessuna parola gli pare esprimere la realtà oggettiva: le cose non stanno più al loro posto e la lingua non le dice più:
gli oggetti hanno un’esistenza retrostante, annidata dietro la loro facciata e sotto la loro superficie, ed è proprio l’intuizione di questa seconda – o terza, o quarta – realtà che mette fuori gioco le possibilità del linguaggio.
Di conseguenza, d’ora in avanti, per Lord Chandos, e presumibilmente per von Hofmannsthal, ombra e silenzio.
Il che riporta a un’ottima compagnia, come sottolinea Claudio Magris nella prefazione: I turbamenti del giovane Törless (1906) di Robert Musil, I quaderni di Malte Laurids Brigge (1910) di Rainer Maria Rilke, L’uomo senza qualità (1930), ancora di Musil (il personaggio di Moosbrugger!), e Auto da fé (1935) di Elias Canetti.
E perché non aggiungere l’ascetismo verbale di Bartleby, il suo celebre “I would prefer not to”?
Pablo Picasso: La bevitrice di assenzio, anche chiamata “La bevitrice appisolata”. 1902.
Ogni cosa mi si frazionava, e ogni parte ancora in altre parti, e nulla più si lasciava imbrigliare in un concetto. Una per una, le parole fluttuavano intorno a me; diventavano occhi, che mi fissavano e nei quali io a mia volta dovevo appuntare lo sguardo. Sono vortici, che a guardarli io sprofondo con un senso di capogiro, che turbinano senza sosta, e oltre i quali si approda nel vuoto.
Il vuoto che accoglie l’uomo sensibile all’alba del Novecento, quanto intorno tutto appare sgretolarsi, a cominciare dalla sintassi, “l’architettura della frase”, basata sul predominio del soggetto sull’oggetto, le cose.
Serve una lingua nuova, che Lord Chandos non conosce (la lingua di Freud?).
Edvard Munch: L’urlo, 1893, la prima delle quattro versioni. Galleria Nazionale, Oslo.
Certo: la rinuncia alla letteratura genera un’opera letteraria perfetta (un vestibolo al silenzio che ha la stessa principesca avvenenza di un ritratto di Lorenzo Lotto, di un madrigale di Gesualdo da Venosa, dice ancora Emanuele Trevi nel capitolo sulla prudenza del suo “Musica distante”); la rinuncia alla parola suscita una lingua raffinata e cristallina.
Magari fosse possibile un’opera concepita al di fuori del self, un’opera che ci permettesse d’uscire dalla prospettiva limitata d’un io individuale, non solo per entrare in altri io simili al nostro, ma per far parlare ciò che non ha parola.
Italo Calvino: Lezioni americane - “Molteplicità”.
Prima Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna Torino 1902.
Auguste Rodin: Il pensatore. 1902, Musée Rodin, Parigi.
Nel mio personale olimpo della letteratura mitteleuropea, insieme a Musil, Schnitzler, Rilke, e Kafka, c’è da sempre anche Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
Come più tardi ne L’uomo difficile (1921), qui (1902) si celebra la bancarotta della parola. La catastrofe linguistica, come la definirebbe Emanuele trevi.
Sotto la veste fittizia di una lettera (il titolo originale è il molto semplice “Ein Brief”) scritta dall’immaginario Lord Philipp Chandos all’amico e maestro Francis Bacon (come ben noto personaggio invece realmente esistito) nel 1603, non a caso in epoca barocca, il che significa scoperte scientifiche e geografiche, arte spumeggiante, qui si denuncia la condizione di crisi, angoscia, solitudine, impotenza, e infine, afasia, dell’uomo moderno, che si sente tradito dalla parola, impotente a penetrare l’essenza delle cose, ormai incapace di esprimere quel che (probabilmente) è diventato inesprimibile, la realtà non più afferrabile, appunto, indicibile.
Joseph Frank “Buster” Keaton
E quindi, lo scrivente Lord Chandos dichiara al suo mentore che abbandona la professione di scrittore perché nessuna parola gli pare esprimere la realtà oggettiva: le cose non stanno più al loro posto e la lingua non le dice più:
gli oggetti hanno un’esistenza retrostante, annidata dietro la loro facciata e sotto la loro superficie, ed è proprio l’intuizione di questa seconda – o terza, o quarta – realtà che mette fuori gioco le possibilità del linguaggio.
Di conseguenza, d’ora in avanti, per Lord Chandos, e presumibilmente per von Hofmannsthal, ombra e silenzio.
Il che riporta a un’ottima compagnia, come sottolinea Claudio Magris nella prefazione: I turbamenti del giovane Törless (1906) di Robert Musil, I quaderni di Malte Laurids Brigge (1910) di Rainer Maria Rilke, L’uomo senza qualità (1930), ancora di Musil (il personaggio di Moosbrugger!), e Auto da fé (1935) di Elias Canetti.
E perché non aggiungere l’ascetismo verbale di Bartleby, il suo celebre “I would prefer not to”?
Pablo Picasso: La bevitrice di assenzio, anche chiamata “La bevitrice appisolata”. 1902.
Ogni cosa mi si frazionava, e ogni parte ancora in altre parti, e nulla più si lasciava imbrigliare in un concetto. Una per una, le parole fluttuavano intorno a me; diventavano occhi, che mi fissavano e nei quali io a mia volta dovevo appuntare lo sguardo. Sono vortici, che a guardarli io sprofondo con un senso di capogiro, che turbinano senza sosta, e oltre i quali si approda nel vuoto.
Il vuoto che accoglie l’uomo sensibile all’alba del Novecento, quanto intorno tutto appare sgretolarsi, a cominciare dalla sintassi, “l’architettura della frase”, basata sul predominio del soggetto sull’oggetto, le cose.
Serve una lingua nuova, che Lord Chandos non conosce (la lingua di Freud?).
Edvard Munch: L’urlo, 1893, la prima delle quattro versioni. Galleria Nazionale, Oslo.
Certo: la rinuncia alla letteratura genera un’opera letteraria perfetta (un vestibolo al silenzio che ha la stessa principesca avvenenza di un ritratto di Lorenzo Lotto, di un madrigale di Gesualdo da Venosa, dice ancora Emanuele Trevi nel capitolo sulla prudenza del suo “Musica distante”); la rinuncia alla parola suscita una lingua raffinata e cristallina.
Magari fosse possibile un’opera concepita al di fuori del self, un’opera che ci permettesse d’uscire dalla prospettiva limitata d’un io individuale, non solo per entrare in altri io simili al nostro, ma per far parlare ciò che non ha parola.
Italo Calvino: Lezioni americane - “Molteplicità”.
Prima Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna Torino 1902.
July 22, 2024
# Bartleby #5
“O caso de Hoffmannsthal é um dos mais singulares e polémicos da arte da negativa, pela sua fulgurante ascensão de menino prodígio das letras, pela crise de escrita que o atinge posteriormente (como na sua ‘Carta de Lord Chandos’, peça emblemática da arte da negativa) e pela sua sucessiva e prudente correcção de rumo.”
- Bartleby & Companhia, Enrique Vila-Matas –
Hugo von Hofmannsthal é bem capaz de ser a verdadeira encarnação do mito imaginado por Herman Melville, pois ao contrário de outros autores que simplesmente moldaram personagens tomadas pela apatia ou pela desistência, através de Lord Chandos, este escritor austríaco, companheiro de Arthur Schnitzler e Stefan Zweig, criou um alter-ego quando se se deparou com uma crise na sua própria vida.
O meu caso é, em resumo, o seguinte: perdi por completo a faculdade de pensar ou de falar consequentemente sobre o que quer que seja.
Esta edição da Relógio d’Água inclui uma introdução exaustiva de Hermann Broch quase tão extensa como a carta que dá título à obra, redigida ficticiamente a Francis Bacon, no início do século XVII, quando este interroga Philip Chandos pelo seu silêncio, depois de uma juventude de profícua produção literária.
Vejo sempre este género de textos como uma falácia. O autor já não consegue escrever, mas ei-lo a escrever; já não se sabe expressar, mas tão bem que o faz neste instante; já não compreende os seus pensamentos, mas expõem-nos melhor do que nunca, e esta missiva melancólica mas encantadora é prova flagrante disso.
Quero dizer que a língua em que me seria, talvez, dado não apenas escrever mas pensar, não é nem o latim, nem o italiano, nem o espanhol, mas uma língua de que não conheço uma só palavra, uma língua com que as coisas mudas me falam.
Na sua incapacidade de escrever, Lord Chados torna-se mais contemplativo e menos intelectual, e a singeleza das suas observações conquistou-me.
Cada um destes objectos e mil outros semelhantes, sobre os quais, aliás, o meu olhar passa com uma indiferença compreensível, pode, a qualquer momento, momento esse que de modo nenhum está no meu poder trazer até aqui, ganhar para mim um cunho tão sublime e comovente que todas as palavras me parecem demasiado pobres para o exprimir.
“O caso de Hoffmannsthal é um dos mais singulares e polémicos da arte da negativa, pela sua fulgurante ascensão de menino prodígio das letras, pela crise de escrita que o atinge posteriormente (como na sua ‘Carta de Lord Chandos’, peça emblemática da arte da negativa) e pela sua sucessiva e prudente correcção de rumo.”
- Bartleby & Companhia, Enrique Vila-Matas –
Hugo von Hofmannsthal é bem capaz de ser a verdadeira encarnação do mito imaginado por Herman Melville, pois ao contrário de outros autores que simplesmente moldaram personagens tomadas pela apatia ou pela desistência, através de Lord Chandos, este escritor austríaco, companheiro de Arthur Schnitzler e Stefan Zweig, criou um alter-ego quando se se deparou com uma crise na sua própria vida.
O meu caso é, em resumo, o seguinte: perdi por completo a faculdade de pensar ou de falar consequentemente sobre o que quer que seja.
Esta edição da Relógio d’Água inclui uma introdução exaustiva de Hermann Broch quase tão extensa como a carta que dá título à obra, redigida ficticiamente a Francis Bacon, no início do século XVII, quando este interroga Philip Chandos pelo seu silêncio, depois de uma juventude de profícua produção literária.
Vejo sempre este género de textos como uma falácia. O autor já não consegue escrever, mas ei-lo a escrever; já não se sabe expressar, mas tão bem que o faz neste instante; já não compreende os seus pensamentos, mas expõem-nos melhor do que nunca, e esta missiva melancólica mas encantadora é prova flagrante disso.
Quero dizer que a língua em que me seria, talvez, dado não apenas escrever mas pensar, não é nem o latim, nem o italiano, nem o espanhol, mas uma língua de que não conheço uma só palavra, uma língua com que as coisas mudas me falam.
Na sua incapacidade de escrever, Lord Chados torna-se mais contemplativo e menos intelectual, e a singeleza das suas observações conquistou-me.
Cada um destes objectos e mil outros semelhantes, sobre os quais, aliás, o meu olhar passa com uma indiferença compreensível, pode, a qualquer momento, momento esse que de modo nenhum está no meu poder trazer até aqui, ganhar para mim um cunho tão sublime e comovente que todas as palavras me parecem demasiado pobres para o exprimir.
![Profile Image for [P].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1486240560i%2F40516522._UY200_CR13%2C0%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
March 25, 2016
Dear Lord Chandos
This is not a review, of course; nor is it a letter, for what is the point of writing a letter to someone who cannot reply, who would not reply even if he were a real man, and not a fictional character? No, it is more a confession masquerading as a game. [How tedious these games are, the games I have so often played in order to distract myself from myself]. Last night I was in the pub with two friends. I had invited them there in order to seek their advice, and I had confessed to them too, which is to say that I talked about myself with the same lack of enthusiasm I bring to almost all human spoken interaction. And, rather absurdly, I tried to explain this, this state of mind, this near-constant feeling of being behind glass, such that having a chat in a pub with two friends strikes me as a chore and my confession more like a duty.
In your letter to Francis Bacon you state that you want to open yourself up entirely, or words to that effect, which seems like rather futile effort, in light of your issues and problems. Perhaps you feel as though you owe Bacon something, in return for his concern regarding your mental paralysis? You write about your previous achievements, and how you now feel distant from them, and from any future work. The phrase you use is an 'unbridgeable gulf.' You cannot write; you will not write. How I envy you this [voluntary or involuntary] renunciation. I do not believe in words, I do not understand them either; they are, to me, like an oppressive frame, a border, a barrier; they are a large sheet of glass upon which I unenthusiastically claw for appearance’s sake.
You once lived in continuous inebriation. Drunk on intellectual stimulation, you might say. Yet there was, for you, no difference, at that time, between the spiritual, or intellectual, and physical worlds. The pleasures were equal. Therefore, your admission is that there has been a kind of breaking down, that something within you has given way. [Which is a sign of mental illness, of course]. Indeed, you write about how it came to be that words ‘disintegrated’ in your mouth ‘like rotten mushrooms.‘ [Which is a lovely image, even to me, a man who does not believe in words]. In this way, your letter could be interpreted as something like a cry of anguish, a requiem for something precious that you have lost. It need not, as such, be directly, or solely, applied to language, but to any important object or thing that inexplicably loses its lustre or meaning. One of the most unfathomable, truly distressing aspects of human experience is the death, or extinguishing, of a passion.
Isn’t it this passion that highlights the inadequacy of language? You do a very good job throughout your letter of giving voice, of applying words, to your feelings, and yet to what extent do they capture your inner life? Isn’t that the issue? Poor exhausted words; let them sleep, for they are over-taxed. Words, like time, is a cage we have voluntarily built around ourselves. I hate. I love. I want. I need. What nonsense. ‘If a lion could talk, we should not be able to understand him’, Wittgenstein argued. I would argue we don’t, and can’t, understand each other; we stand, each at opposing ends of an unbridgeable gulf, shouting absurdities into the wind. We are a Spaniard and an Italian, who believe that they are conversing, that they are coming together, because certain of their sounds are vaguely familiar. Games again; always games.
Yes, the passion is important, to you and to me. Or let us say the feeling, the moment of transcendence, as experienced when in the presence of ‘a watering can, a harrow left in a field, a dog in the sun, a shabby churchyard,’ these ordinary things that take on ‘a sublime and moving aura.’ How hippyish, your vast empathy, your harmony! And yet I too feel – although it is impossible to say that what we feel is the same thing, of course – the tremors of the supernatural. I was once, one early evening, sitting on a bench, in Rotherham bus-station, and within me there was a sense, an overwhelming, indescribable, sense of well-being. The irony, of course, is that this hippyish empathy, this melting butter oneness, does not lead necessarily to peace, but, just as likely, to frustration or bitterness or despair. These experiences are, alas, fleeting, and, once gone, one is left in the unenviable position of being completely unable to express, to others, and even to yourself, what exactly you have experienced.
So, what is the point of writing, the purpose of which is communication, when it will inevitably end in failure? Why did you write? Why am I writing now? I wanted to end with an expression of gratitude, for I was, prior to this, myself close to the point of abandoning for good this so often unpleasant activity. And yet you have reminded me that there is something in the grasping, if not for me then hopefully for someone else, someone who may read this and find some level of pleasure in it, as I did in your work.
March 2016
[P]
This is not a review, of course; nor is it a letter, for what is the point of writing a letter to someone who cannot reply, who would not reply even if he were a real man, and not a fictional character? No, it is more a confession masquerading as a game. [How tedious these games are, the games I have so often played in order to distract myself from myself]. Last night I was in the pub with two friends. I had invited them there in order to seek their advice, and I had confessed to them too, which is to say that I talked about myself with the same lack of enthusiasm I bring to almost all human spoken interaction. And, rather absurdly, I tried to explain this, this state of mind, this near-constant feeling of being behind glass, such that having a chat in a pub with two friends strikes me as a chore and my confession more like a duty.
In your letter to Francis Bacon you state that you want to open yourself up entirely, or words to that effect, which seems like rather futile effort, in light of your issues and problems. Perhaps you feel as though you owe Bacon something, in return for his concern regarding your mental paralysis? You write about your previous achievements, and how you now feel distant from them, and from any future work. The phrase you use is an 'unbridgeable gulf.' You cannot write; you will not write. How I envy you this [voluntary or involuntary] renunciation. I do not believe in words, I do not understand them either; they are, to me, like an oppressive frame, a border, a barrier; they are a large sheet of glass upon which I unenthusiastically claw for appearance’s sake.
You once lived in continuous inebriation. Drunk on intellectual stimulation, you might say. Yet there was, for you, no difference, at that time, between the spiritual, or intellectual, and physical worlds. The pleasures were equal. Therefore, your admission is that there has been a kind of breaking down, that something within you has given way. [Which is a sign of mental illness, of course]. Indeed, you write about how it came to be that words ‘disintegrated’ in your mouth ‘like rotten mushrooms.‘ [Which is a lovely image, even to me, a man who does not believe in words]. In this way, your letter could be interpreted as something like a cry of anguish, a requiem for something precious that you have lost. It need not, as such, be directly, or solely, applied to language, but to any important object or thing that inexplicably loses its lustre or meaning. One of the most unfathomable, truly distressing aspects of human experience is the death, or extinguishing, of a passion.
Isn’t it this passion that highlights the inadequacy of language? You do a very good job throughout your letter of giving voice, of applying words, to your feelings, and yet to what extent do they capture your inner life? Isn’t that the issue? Poor exhausted words; let them sleep, for they are over-taxed. Words, like time, is a cage we have voluntarily built around ourselves. I hate. I love. I want. I need. What nonsense. ‘If a lion could talk, we should not be able to understand him’, Wittgenstein argued. I would argue we don’t, and can’t, understand each other; we stand, each at opposing ends of an unbridgeable gulf, shouting absurdities into the wind. We are a Spaniard and an Italian, who believe that they are conversing, that they are coming together, because certain of their sounds are vaguely familiar. Games again; always games.
Yes, the passion is important, to you and to me. Or let us say the feeling, the moment of transcendence, as experienced when in the presence of ‘a watering can, a harrow left in a field, a dog in the sun, a shabby churchyard,’ these ordinary things that take on ‘a sublime and moving aura.’ How hippyish, your vast empathy, your harmony! And yet I too feel – although it is impossible to say that what we feel is the same thing, of course – the tremors of the supernatural. I was once, one early evening, sitting on a bench, in Rotherham bus-station, and within me there was a sense, an overwhelming, indescribable, sense of well-being. The irony, of course, is that this hippyish empathy, this melting butter oneness, does not lead necessarily to peace, but, just as likely, to frustration or bitterness or despair. These experiences are, alas, fleeting, and, once gone, one is left in the unenviable position of being completely unable to express, to others, and even to yourself, what exactly you have experienced.
So, what is the point of writing, the purpose of which is communication, when it will inevitably end in failure? Why did you write? Why am I writing now? I wanted to end with an expression of gratitude, for I was, prior to this, myself close to the point of abandoning for good this so often unpleasant activity. And yet you have reminded me that there is something in the grasping, if not for me then hopefully for someone else, someone who may read this and find some level of pleasure in it, as I did in your work.
March 2016
[P]
October 8, 2014
Somewhere in one of Julio Cortazar's books he raves about Hofmannsthal's The Lord Chandos Letter, so years ago I tracked it down in a library, read it, and loved it; but I couldn't find anything else by him. Good thing NYRB has now put this collection out, which includes The Letter, stories, and a few prose poems.
Hoffmannsthal was a late 19th c. Viennese literary prodigy whose Lord Chandos letter was his farewell to purely lyrical literature (before he was 30), as he was overcome with the emptiness of words. He then consciously became more populist with his work, writing the libretti for some of Richard Strauss's operas.
The "stories" are like symbolist fairy tales filtered through a series of dream mirrors (often ending with vaguely ecstatic life-is-a-dream deaths), but they're not things to breeze through, being densely subtle, highly wrought, and extremely evocative. Some of the pieces in this collection weren't published in Hofmannsthal's lifetime, some of which are here translated for the first time. Others were never completed, but even as fragments these are very satisfying, as he is so skilled at creating mysterious and enigmatic atmosphere and imagery that their incompleteness actually enhances their mystery.
The prose poems are mini masterpieces of highly refined sensation intermingling with highly refined intellectualism, which pairing seems to be at the heart of much of his writing.
The famous Letter is a fictionalized expression of Hofmannsthal's growing disatisfaction with using words to express the most profound truths. In the letter are numerous examples of words being profondly inadequate to the task of expressing very strange but fairly mundane experiences. For instance, he describes being overwhelmed by seeing a half empty pail next to a tree. Something about this sight fills him with mystery and dread, and while he can describe very well this mystery and dread he can't use words to really get at what caused his reaction, which in turn kind of paralyzes his intelligence.
Great stuff!
Hoffmannsthal was a late 19th c. Viennese literary prodigy whose Lord Chandos letter was his farewell to purely lyrical literature (before he was 30), as he was overcome with the emptiness of words. He then consciously became more populist with his work, writing the libretti for some of Richard Strauss's operas.
The "stories" are like symbolist fairy tales filtered through a series of dream mirrors (often ending with vaguely ecstatic life-is-a-dream deaths), but they're not things to breeze through, being densely subtle, highly wrought, and extremely evocative. Some of the pieces in this collection weren't published in Hofmannsthal's lifetime, some of which are here translated for the first time. Others were never completed, but even as fragments these are very satisfying, as he is so skilled at creating mysterious and enigmatic atmosphere and imagery that their incompleteness actually enhances their mystery.
The prose poems are mini masterpieces of highly refined sensation intermingling with highly refined intellectualism, which pairing seems to be at the heart of much of his writing.
The famous Letter is a fictionalized expression of Hofmannsthal's growing disatisfaction with using words to express the most profound truths. In the letter are numerous examples of words being profondly inadequate to the task of expressing very strange but fairly mundane experiences. For instance, he describes being overwhelmed by seeing a half empty pail next to a tree. Something about this sight fills him with mystery and dread, and while he can describe very well this mystery and dread he can't use words to really get at what caused his reaction, which in turn kind of paralyzes his intelligence.
Great stuff!
May 21, 2025
I found this particularly paradoxical: a lengthy missive detailing an inability to write, a failure of language painted with brilliant images and transportive metaphors. As an exercise this fictitious letter spurred consideration down previously darkened avenues of expression. Within the Letter we find Chandos struck by beauty as well as the abject. He appears to be on the Road to Damascus or perhaps Nietzsche in Turin, hugging a flogged horse and weeping for our sins. The nature of this mystical paralysis is only an oblique device, the origin is left unrecorded.
I read this in anticipation of a further parlor game. I’m practically skittish about the potential frisson. It might be circular, a sketch pad of tautology but I find it all immensely entertaining. I’ll certainly read the Letter again tomorrow before beginning the next station of the funhouse.
I read this in anticipation of a further parlor game. I’m practically skittish about the potential frisson. It might be circular, a sketch pad of tautology but I find it all immensely entertaining. I’ll certainly read the Letter again tomorrow before beginning the next station of the funhouse.
Read
April 3, 2025The Indispensable Lord Chandos Letter
These stories have long been classics of modernist literature. They are pertinent to the history of symbolism and fantasy fiction, and the ongoing development of what Robert Musil called "daylight mysticism" (that's in his "Posthumous Papers of a Living Author").
"The Lord Chandos Letter" (1902) in particular, is an important text in the history of modernist mistrust of words. It plays a central role in Enrique Vila-Matas's Bartleby & Co., a novel about people who have given up writing. George Steiner has written about "The Lord Chandos Letter" in Real Presences, and it influenced Wittgenstein and others in the opening decades of the 20th century. Pascal Quignard answered von Hofmannsthal's letter with his Answer to Lord Chandos, and both have been answered by Jean-Luc Nancy in his intrduction to the English translation.
"The Lord Chandos Letter" describes von Hofmannsthal's retreat from language. He is given to personal, incommunicable, "sublime" experiences, which can be set off by all kinds of small events: a water beetle rowing across the dark surface of water in a rain barrel; rats dying on the floor of a dairy barn, writhing in the lethal atmosphere of the "sharp, sweetish-smelling" poison; "a moss-covered stone," and "all the shabby and crude objects of a rogh life." He is no longer moved by the grand, beautiful, pompous, public displays of ordinary life, but only the forgtten, mislaid, overlooked, trivial, "meaningless" things that other people fail to notice.
The story can be read as part of yet another early 20th century interest, the return to religious feeling through "re-enchantment" and the aesthetic of the overlooked. Although Chandos shares with mystics like Jakob Boehme an inability to recall numinous moments of transcedent non-verbal experience, he calls them "sublime," not religious, and frames his impending inability to speak or reason in terms of language, not religion. ("Numinous" is yet another early 20th-century avatar for religious experience, since it comes from Rudolf Otto's Idea of the Holy, 1917—and "re-enchantment" developed from Max Weber's Entzauberung der Welt, also published in 1917.)
These stories have long been classics of modernist literature. They are pertinent to the history of symbolism and fantasy fiction, and the ongoing development of what Robert Musil called "daylight mysticism" (that's in his "Posthumous Papers of a Living Author").
"The Lord Chandos Letter" (1902) in particular, is an important text in the history of modernist mistrust of words. It plays a central role in Enrique Vila-Matas's Bartleby & Co., a novel about people who have given up writing. George Steiner has written about "The Lord Chandos Letter" in Real Presences, and it influenced Wittgenstein and others in the opening decades of the 20th century. Pascal Quignard answered von Hofmannsthal's letter with his Answer to Lord Chandos, and both have been answered by Jean-Luc Nancy in his intrduction to the English translation.
"The Lord Chandos Letter" describes von Hofmannsthal's retreat from language. He is given to personal, incommunicable, "sublime" experiences, which can be set off by all kinds of small events: a water beetle rowing across the dark surface of water in a rain barrel; rats dying on the floor of a dairy barn, writhing in the lethal atmosphere of the "sharp, sweetish-smelling" poison; "a moss-covered stone," and "all the shabby and crude objects of a rogh life." He is no longer moved by the grand, beautiful, pompous, public displays of ordinary life, but only the forgtten, mislaid, overlooked, trivial, "meaningless" things that other people fail to notice.
The story can be read as part of yet another early 20th century interest, the return to religious feeling through "re-enchantment" and the aesthetic of the overlooked. Although Chandos shares with mystics like Jakob Boehme an inability to recall numinous moments of transcedent non-verbal experience, he calls them "sublime," not religious, and frames his impending inability to speak or reason in terms of language, not religion. ("Numinous" is yet another early 20th-century avatar for religious experience, since it comes from Rudolf Otto's Idea of the Holy, 1917—and "re-enchantment" developed from Max Weber's Entzauberung der Welt, also published in 1917.)
October 28, 2023
I didn’t get on with these tales. Maybe the problem was that several of them were constructed from fragments left by the author, but I felt they lacked coherence. The purpose of each story was not clear, were they gothic horror? Supernatural spine-tinglers? Psychological thriller? In one tale we have a death foretold (although the character and telling of it are so bland that one isn’t certain the cavalry man is dead and one cares even less) written in a way intended to confuse the reader which makes no sense when the story relies on a concluding twist as pay-off.
Many of the stories start off well but fade into nothingness. The overwhelming feeling I got reading them was of a big black cloud of ennui looming over everything, and I could imagine the slumped shoulders of each character inhabiting a world where the verve has been sucked out.
I have seen it suggested that the Lord Chandos Letter offering gives some understanding to the rest of the book, namely that Hofmannsthal wanted his writing to capture moments and experiences of the everyday. I’m sure that writing of that type is not without merit but I find his intention at odds with the stories themselves that feature premonitions and sinister servants that lead to bizarre deaths which I struggle to believe were everyday events even in Austria a hundred years ago.
For all I disliked about the book I cannot disregard it purely because of this description of all those ideas and projects that you embark on full of enthusiasm and devote time to before discarding them for new.
“What is man, that he conceives projects!
And there were other projects I toyed with. Your kind letter brings these back too. They dance before me like miserable mosquitoes on a dim wall no longer illuminated by the bright sun of a happy time, each of them engorged with a drop of my blood.
Many of the stories start off well but fade into nothingness. The overwhelming feeling I got reading them was of a big black cloud of ennui looming over everything, and I could imagine the slumped shoulders of each character inhabiting a world where the verve has been sucked out.
I have seen it suggested that the Lord Chandos Letter offering gives some understanding to the rest of the book, namely that Hofmannsthal wanted his writing to capture moments and experiences of the everyday. I’m sure that writing of that type is not without merit but I find his intention at odds with the stories themselves that feature premonitions and sinister servants that lead to bizarre deaths which I struggle to believe were everyday events even in Austria a hundred years ago.
For all I disliked about the book I cannot disregard it purely because of this description of all those ideas and projects that you embark on full of enthusiasm and devote time to before discarding them for new.
“What is man, that he conceives projects!
And there were other projects I toyed with. Your kind letter brings these back too. They dance before me like miserable mosquitoes on a dim wall no longer illuminated by the bright sun of a happy time, each of them engorged with a drop of my blood.
May 22, 2025
Hugo Von Hofmannsthal has a fantastic name and every once in a while writes a clear sentence conveying a clear image but for the most part due most likely to a crappy translation mixed with antiquated story sensibilities admixed with weak sensory celebrations that seem more pathological than ecstatic, to borrow a phrase from the world of breastfeeding, I didn't latch with this one and thereby wasn't properly nourished. I can't say I completed every story since midway through most of them, despite feeling rested and readerishly energetic, I soon felt my head starting to swim and my eyes glaze and attention wander toward thoughts about what's in the fridge. At best, it's sort of like Proust's pink hawthorns, but not as rare, distributed in total democratic fashion to pretty much everything, so everything is weighted with potential significance but comes off sounding sort of like a stoned sophomore's submission to a creative writing workshop. For example: "Everything came to pieces, the pieces broke into more pieces, and nothing could be encompassed by one idea. Isolated words swam about me; they turned into eyes that stared at me and into which I had to stare back, dizzying whirlpools which spun around and around and led into the void." Ultimately, holmes with the fantastic name, a friend of Strauss, is someone who I bet wholeheartedly stood behind a line like this: "when alone I take the twinkling of the stars personally . . ." It's not so much solipsism as simple beatifics expressed in phrases ("everything came to pieces") that didn't do it for me. Disappointing, Herr HvH, because I thought I'd love you thanks to this becomingly slim NYRB edition.
February 9, 2025
**Der Brief des Lord Chandos**
by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
An ode to literature, this collection presents the author's insightful essays on poetry, prose, and his favourite classic writers.
*The Letter of Lord Chandos* is, at its core, the confession of a once-promising young author who finds himself incapable of producing new works—whether poetry or prose. He struggles not only with creation but also with articulating coherent thoughts.
The letter encapsulates the existential doubt that haunts many writers throughout their lives—the fear of creative paralysis. This uncertainty, often expressed in classical literature, echoes the pleas of authors who invoke the muses for inspiration.
Hofmannsthal's reflections also touch upon literary greats like Balzac and Goethe, exploring their views on theatre, poetry, prose, and the beauty of language. Additionally, he highlights the significance of Italian writers such as Gabriele D'Annunzio and Leopardi, urging their discovery.
This book is a must-read for aspiring writers and literary analysts seeking to understand the role of literature in today's world.
May 13, 2023
Il giovane Lord Chandos dialoga via epistola con, nientedimeno, Francesco Bacone.
È sconvolto perché ha perso, lui giovane scrittore, la vena creativa non riuscendo più a collegare, tramite il linguaggio, spirito e materia. “La mia condizione era quella di chi si fosse trovato improvvisamente catapultato in un giardino affollato di statue senza occhi.”
Al contempo acquisisce la capacità di “sentire” nell’intimo il fluire della vita nelle cose più minute, partecipare e godere del presente. “Ma c’era qualcosa di più, qualcosa di più divino e più animalesco; e c’era il presente, il più concreto e sublime presente.”
Un gioiellino. In 15 pagine un’esplosione emotiva. Letto 3 volte consecutive.
È sconvolto perché ha perso, lui giovane scrittore, la vena creativa non riuscendo più a collegare, tramite il linguaggio, spirito e materia. “La mia condizione era quella di chi si fosse trovato improvvisamente catapultato in un giardino affollato di statue senza occhi.”
Al contempo acquisisce la capacità di “sentire” nell’intimo il fluire della vita nelle cose più minute, partecipare e godere del presente. “Ma c’era qualcosa di più, qualcosa di più divino e più animalesco; e c’era il presente, il più concreto e sublime presente.”
Un gioiellino. In 15 pagine un’esplosione emotiva. Letto 3 volte consecutive.
Read
September 29, 2024I’m of two minds here. On the one hand, there’s a lot to recommend, and Hofmannsthal is very much my kind of guy – abstract, dark, Mitteleuropa, check, check, check. On the other hand, there have been so many other writers who do this sort of thing at a higher level – Schnitzler, Zweig, Rezzori, and Walser just to name a few. Hofmannsthal isn’t in their league, which isn’t to say that his writing is bad, it’s just that it’s overshadowed. I still think you should read this NYRB volume if you like the same sort of Mitteleuropa gloom as me, but it’s not essential reading.
February 12, 2018
Here we have a rather slim but suggestive selection of prose pieces—most of which are radically incomplete—by the fabled child-saint of literary fin de siècle Vienna himself, Hugo von Hofmannsthal. An author whom Hermann Broch maintained (in an erudite, book-length socio-biographical study) was the premier modernist writer—greater even than that blind dipsomaniac and noted fart fetishist, Joyce McSomething-or-Other, and whose precocious mastery of language Stefan Zweig ranked as a world-historical literary event comparable only to the earlier appearances of Keats and Rimbaud. Having read only this uneven volume of often underwhelming prose, I confess that I remain deeply confused about Broch's judgement. As with so many other issues of historical significance, perhaps one simply had to be there… While a great deal of potentially interesting thoughts about recurring themes and writerly techniques occurred to me while mulling over these pieces, my primary takeaway was that HvH was first and finally a poet, that he writes prose as a poet writes prose: with all of the salient virtues (startling imagery; unpredictable comedic leaps; the phrases which click like a well-made box) and vices (an almost aggressive disinterest in narrative; muddled descriptions of action sequences and passages of weirdly amateurish prose resulting from an unwillingness to 'kill one's darlings’) implied by such a statement. Poetry, alas, is all darlings. It is understandable then that, in the future, I am principally interested in reading this long-dead Austrian kid’s poetry. We are even given a little taste of it here, in this standalone prose-chunk from 1899:
Since I am so unsure of myself and comparison with the past will make the present obvious in no time, since when I am alone I take the twinkling of the stars personally and have myself in the dark where the mussels live, and am afraid among many other things of becoming entangled because I get hankerings for one thing after another, since a word darkens me like smoke from magic herbs but my thoughts are more frightening than the forest, more open than a ship, I think about you and your kisses like someone who became a breeze or a tree at the very moment when he lay in a girl’s arms. When I kiss you my very wavering, all eyes, contracts into a gem.
Since I am so unsure of myself and comparison with the past will make the present obvious in no time, since when I am alone I take the twinkling of the stars personally and have myself in the dark where the mussels live, and am afraid among many other things of becoming entangled because I get hankerings for one thing after another, since a word darkens me like smoke from magic herbs but my thoughts are more frightening than the forest, more open than a ship, I think about you and your kisses like someone who became a breeze or a tree at the very moment when he lay in a girl’s arms. When I kiss you my very wavering, all eyes, contracts into a gem.
March 25, 2016
It's believed by some that a primary influence on the Lord Chandos Letter was the work of Ernst Mach. Mach is best known today for his association with the famous Mach number for measuring supersonic velocity, but in his own time he also made major contributions to the fields of experimental physics, optics, cosmology and the philosophy of science. Mach's theoretical research was particularly important to the young Albert Einstein in its overt rejection of the absolutes underpinning Newtonian mechanics.
In connection with the von Hofmannsthal text, Ernst Mach held that the physical sciences could only describe the sensory appearances of external reality, but that reality itself far outstripped our attempts at reducing it to "quantitatively described exterior properties", these being nothing more than a "group of sensations on which our thoughts are fastened" and isolated by us on the basis of their being "of relatively greater stability than the others, from the stream of all our sensations".
He also suggested the existence of an inner side to nature, including nonhuman sensations and even "sensation in matter", which for him pointed to an explanation of why the world is "composed of elements that seem inextricably linked to consciousness and sensation". All of which may have either sparked von Hofmannsthal's creative imagination, or resonated with his own direct experience to inspire the Lord Chandos Letter, it's difficult to say which...
In connection with the von Hofmannsthal text, Ernst Mach held that the physical sciences could only describe the sensory appearances of external reality, but that reality itself far outstripped our attempts at reducing it to "quantitatively described exterior properties", these being nothing more than a "group of sensations on which our thoughts are fastened" and isolated by us on the basis of their being "of relatively greater stability than the others, from the stream of all our sensations".
He also suggested the existence of an inner side to nature, including nonhuman sensations and even "sensation in matter", which for him pointed to an explanation of why the world is "composed of elements that seem inextricably linked to consciousness and sensation". All of which may have either sparked von Hofmannsthal's creative imagination, or resonated with his own direct experience to inspire the Lord Chandos Letter, it's difficult to say which...
April 2, 2025
Too many adjectives
May 22, 2025
bastante identificada...siempre queriendo encontrar las palabras exactas cuando realmente todo esto va de ver la luz del sol reflejada en un río y pensar: this is it
November 8, 2020
I've had this slim volume for about a decade, but had never actually read the other stories until this week... after careful consideration I have to say, stick to the last ten pages. Still such a revelation.
***
Is there such a thing as reader's block?
When literature itself becomes tedious, and your brain won't stop throbbing with useless and pointless and knowledge, then there's the Lord Chandos letter. Read it again and cleanse yourself.
***
Is there such a thing as reader's block?
When literature itself becomes tedious, and your brain won't stop throbbing with useless and pointless and knowledge, then there's the Lord Chandos letter. Read it again and cleanse yourself.
May 5, 2016
Νομίζω ότι είναι ένα μικρό διαμαντάκι το οποίο χρίζει πολλαπλές αναγνώσεις από μεριάς μου προκειμένου να καταφέρω να φτάσω στην ουσία του όπως αυτή αναλύεται πολύ όμορφα στην εισαγωγή του.
August 3, 2023
These short stories show that not only was Hugo von Hofmannsthal a wonderful poet and playwright and librettist for Richard Strauss's greatest operas such as Der Rosenkavalier and Elektra, he could also write wonderful prose.
The Lord Chandos Letter, just titled 'A Letter' in this collection, is the most famous of his stories. Here, Lord Chandos writes to the English philosopher Francis Bacon, to indicate the inexplicable state in which he finds himself, namely that he is unable to write any more books, because the only language he's now able to write in is a language in which he knows no words, a mute language.
The other stories are mostly quite perplexing including The Tale of the 672nd Night about a young, wealthy orphaned merchant's son who withdraws into himself with four servants for company and meets a tragic death courtesy of a horse.
The Lord Chandos Letter, just titled 'A Letter' in this collection, is the most famous of his stories. Here, Lord Chandos writes to the English philosopher Francis Bacon, to indicate the inexplicable state in which he finds himself, namely that he is unable to write any more books, because the only language he's now able to write in is a language in which he knows no words, a mute language.
The other stories are mostly quite perplexing including The Tale of the 672nd Night about a young, wealthy orphaned merchant's son who withdraws into himself with four servants for company and meets a tragic death courtesy of a horse.
June 28, 2021
All the brouhaha about Hofmannsthal’s The Letter puts too much weight upon an interesting but not that substantial work. It plainly does not and cannot sustain the load of historic and literary importance ascribed to it by people like John Banville, who wrote the Introduction to this edition.
There are three or four stories in this collection worth reading, but most of the rest are fragments I am sure Hofmannsthal would have been embarrassed to see in print.
There are three or four stories in this collection worth reading, but most of the rest are fragments I am sure Hofmannsthal would have been embarrassed to see in print.
June 20, 2021
I have been fascinated by early 20th Century Vienna ever since reading The Man Without Qualities. Then I discovered Roth and Zweig and learned about the Vienna Circle. It just kept pulling me in deeper. I wanted to know these people. I wanted to travel back in time and get to know them personally. Hugo von Hofmannsthal was the child prodigy of this era. He was loved and admired as a poet and writer of librettos for Strauss. I began finding references to The Lord Chandos Letter in my other readings so I had to find it and read it. What a disappointment!
Most of the stories in this book were written by Hofmannsthal in his twenties, and they felt to me like juvenilia. They were promising, but immature. Several of them follow a fairy tale structure. There is an unceasing fascination with death. The characters are poorly developed and there is almost no dialog. They have the same porous border between the mundane world and the threatening supernatural world that can be found in ETA Hoffman, Goethe's Elf King and the writings of Hofmannsthal's contemporary Arthur Schnitzler, but all of the others do it better than Hofmannsthal. There is the same sense of care about language and expression that can be found in the works of other poets who turned their hand to prose, but Rilke, Pushkin and Mandelshtam were all much better at poetically constructed prose.
OK, so what about the famous letter that is the centerpiece of this collection? Again, it was disappointing. Only a few years after this, Wittgenstein echoed the theme of this story when he famously said, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." I don't agree with Wittgenstein, but at least he had a consistent philosophical point of view to back it up, which Hofmannsthal does not have. For starters, Hofmannsthal destroys his position by having a man write articulately about his inability to express himself articulately. Why pick the form of a letter to do this? He could have given us these thoughts as an inner monologue so that we wouldn't have had to slog through the letter waiting for an explanation that never comes as to how Chandos is able to get it together to write the letter. And where does this inability to use words come from? It seems in part to be based on the inability of words to express the feelings of transcendent wholeness that he finds from time to time, but he tells us that he had similar feelings of wholeness back when he was still writing and planning his next writing projects to express the connectedness of the universe. And anybody who has read about or personally experienced LSD or Zen discussions of finding Nirvana knows that part of the experience of transcendence is the return to the mundane world after you have had your great epiphany. Chandos' tied tongue doesn't ring true, and he seems to be whining when he should be celebrating his occasional moments of perfect clarity and understanding. It's all just bad philosophy and mediocre writing with ideas poorly expressed. I don't see what the fuss was about. This one was not for me.
Most of the stories in this book were written by Hofmannsthal in his twenties, and they felt to me like juvenilia. They were promising, but immature. Several of them follow a fairy tale structure. There is an unceasing fascination with death. The characters are poorly developed and there is almost no dialog. They have the same porous border between the mundane world and the threatening supernatural world that can be found in ETA Hoffman, Goethe's Elf King and the writings of Hofmannsthal's contemporary Arthur Schnitzler, but all of the others do it better than Hofmannsthal. There is the same sense of care about language and expression that can be found in the works of other poets who turned their hand to prose, but Rilke, Pushkin and Mandelshtam were all much better at poetically constructed prose.
OK, so what about the famous letter that is the centerpiece of this collection? Again, it was disappointing. Only a few years after this, Wittgenstein echoed the theme of this story when he famously said, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." I don't agree with Wittgenstein, but at least he had a consistent philosophical point of view to back it up, which Hofmannsthal does not have. For starters, Hofmannsthal destroys his position by having a man write articulately about his inability to express himself articulately. Why pick the form of a letter to do this? He could have given us these thoughts as an inner monologue so that we wouldn't have had to slog through the letter waiting for an explanation that never comes as to how Chandos is able to get it together to write the letter. And where does this inability to use words come from? It seems in part to be based on the inability of words to express the feelings of transcendent wholeness that he finds from time to time, but he tells us that he had similar feelings of wholeness back when he was still writing and planning his next writing projects to express the connectedness of the universe. And anybody who has read about or personally experienced LSD or Zen discussions of finding Nirvana knows that part of the experience of transcendence is the return to the mundane world after you have had your great epiphany. Chandos' tied tongue doesn't ring true, and he seems to be whining when he should be celebrating his occasional moments of perfect clarity and understanding. It's all just bad philosophy and mediocre writing with ideas poorly expressed. I don't see what the fuss was about. This one was not for me.
October 14, 2023
“Es decir, porque la lengua, en que tal vez me estaría dado no sólo escribir sino también pensar, no es ni el latín, ni el inglés, ni el italiano, ni el español, sino una lengua de cuyas palabras no conozco ni una sola, una lengua en la que me hablan las cosas mudas y en la que quizá un día, en la tumba, rendiré cuentas ante un juez desconocido”.
September 11, 2024
“Ma quando questo strano incantamento mi abbandona, non sono capace di parlarne, e non saprei spiegare con parole sensate in cosa sia consistita questa armonia che compenetra me e il mondo intero e in qual modo mi si sia palesata, esattamente come non potrei precisare i moti delle mie viscere e i sussulti del mio sangue.”
July 27, 2025
Volviendo sobre este texto que leí en mi primero de carrera un par de semanas después de acabarla. No lo había leído al completo desde hacía tres años y, sin embargo, nunca me ha abandonado, acompañándome siempre en la forma de mirar el mundo y de tocarlo.
Ya lo había leído cuando encontré un ejemplar en físico en la Cuesta de Moyano de Madrid. Recuerdo que tras leerlo la misma tarde en la que lo compré se lo ofrecí a la persona con quien estaba entonces. Rechazó, diciendo literalmente "no me meto basura en el cerebro". Desde aquel momento me prometí a mí misma que cualquier persona que se adentrase lo suficiente en mi vida debía leer esta obra o, al menos, presentar una sensibilidad similar a la de Philip Chandos (pensar con el corazón). Algunos de mis amigos llegaron a leerlo, pero hubo un momento en el que me olvidé de esta condición.
Cuando la realidad no puede atraparse con conceptos ni palabras porque las excede y ya no es posible escribir ni hablar es donde creo que comienza la vida.
"De lo que no se puede hablar es mejor callar", pero un lenguaje en el que hablan las cosas mudas cuando uno es permeable quizás algún día pueda inventarse. Mientras tanto, sólo podemos quedar desbordados por un sentimiento divino con dos caras: éxtasis o enfermedad.
Hoy regreso a una de las obras más significativas para mí en estos últimos años porque mañana vuelvo a prestarla.
Ya lo había leído cuando encontré un ejemplar en físico en la Cuesta de Moyano de Madrid. Recuerdo que tras leerlo la misma tarde en la que lo compré se lo ofrecí a la persona con quien estaba entonces. Rechazó, diciendo literalmente "no me meto basura en el cerebro". Desde aquel momento me prometí a mí misma que cualquier persona que se adentrase lo suficiente en mi vida debía leer esta obra o, al menos, presentar una sensibilidad similar a la de Philip Chandos (pensar con el corazón). Algunos de mis amigos llegaron a leerlo, pero hubo un momento en el que me olvidé de esta condición.
Cuando la realidad no puede atraparse con conceptos ni palabras porque las excede y ya no es posible escribir ni hablar es donde creo que comienza la vida.
"De lo que no se puede hablar es mejor callar", pero un lenguaje en el que hablan las cosas mudas cuando uno es permeable quizás algún día pueda inventarse. Mientras tanto, sólo podemos quedar desbordados por un sentimiento divino con dos caras: éxtasis o enfermedad.
Hoy regreso a una de las obras más significativas para mí en estos últimos años porque mañana vuelvo a prestarla.
April 2, 2011
Hugo von Hofmannsthal is one of a litany of writers whose fantastic reputations have dwindled since their own day. Considered a literary phenom in fin-de-siecle Vienna, and highly regarded as Richard Strauss’ librettist for some of his finest operas, including Elektra (1909), Ariande auf Naxos (1912), and Der Rosenkavalier (1911), he hadn’t even hit the age of age of twenty before his writing began to draw serious attention. Today, he is mostly known for the eponymous story originally published as “Ein Brief,” known much better today as “The Lord Chandos Letter.”
Hofmannsthal’s writing, at least all of the short stories drawn together in this short volume, have a patina of existential crisis and concern which he manages to manifest in the most interesting of ways. Old literary preoccupations like character development and conventional plot have largely been sacrificed to communicate the message that something is deeply and terribly wrong. His characters all have trouble resolving where, quite literally, they began and the world beyond them stops. Hofmannsthal makes a conscious effort to functionally blunt the senses of the reader in much the same way his characters’ senses have been blunted, by the use of other-worldly, mystical, automatic associations. Descriptors that readily come to mind when I think of the best of these stories are oneiric and magical (sur)realist.
In some stories, Hofmannsthal is able to take a common message – in this case, the imminence and ubiquity of mortality – and reworks it into something wholly innovative and compelling. In “Tale of the Veiled Woman,” a miner’s wife eagerly awaits the return of her husband from work. We see her wring her hands, running through her mind on a loop the dozens of things that could have gone wrong at the mine that day. At the mine, the husband encounters the woman in the veil, whose presence preternaturally attunes him to the concerns of another world. When he arrives home, he notices that his body no longer casts a shadow against his house and this, quite rightly, worries him. Over the dinner table, he tries to avoid the light of the kerosene lamp; he has noticed that the face of his wife, beautiful, young, and milky that morning, is now a skull stretched over with a piece of tallow-colored skin, a walking corpse. Unable to cope with this horrible vision (is it just a vision?), he readies a chariot and escapes from his family.
In “Tale of the 672nd Night,” a man lives a solitary life, accompanied only by his faithful servants who, in carefully sustained paranoid delusion, he thinks are always watching him. Seeking a debouche from his house, he sets out to escape them, only to find himself chased by a series of characters that he slowly discovers are actually avatars of his servants Caught in a dead end, trying to find still another escape, he is kicked by a horse. Efforts by local townspeople to help him are futile, and he dies in a small, dark room, totally antithetical the gigantic, empty manse he is used to. But at least he is free of the help.
The title story takes the form of a long letter to renowned scientist Francis Bacon, written from one among his circle of literary friends who wants apologize for the recent lack of literary output. In his letter, Lord Chandos details a most peculiar symptom: he is unable to formulate the most simple of thoughts. (Yes, he is writing this in a lengthy, eloquent reader, so you need a healthy suspension of disbelief.) Here, too, Chandos claims moments of heightened sensation or afflatus, but they are of no use in helping him overcome his newfound crisis: “As soon, however, as this strange enchantment falls from me, I find myself confused; wherein this harmony transcending me and the entire world consisted, and how it made itself known to me, I could present in sensible words as little as I could say anything precise about the inner movements of my intestines or a congestion of my blood.” For anyone deeply invested in the task of writing, this story haunts the imagination like a specter; for all the spookiness of some of the other stories, this one looms largest. Some have suggested that this letter has autobiographical elements, as it conspicuously marks Hofmannsthal’s transition from the composition of lyric poetry to drama and libretti. Perhaps it is an ode to the impuissance of literature as Hofmannsthal knew it, a cue for the ushering in of a brave, new modernism.
Hofmannsthal’s writing, at least all of the short stories drawn together in this short volume, have a patina of existential crisis and concern which he manages to manifest in the most interesting of ways. Old literary preoccupations like character development and conventional plot have largely been sacrificed to communicate the message that something is deeply and terribly wrong. His characters all have trouble resolving where, quite literally, they began and the world beyond them stops. Hofmannsthal makes a conscious effort to functionally blunt the senses of the reader in much the same way his characters’ senses have been blunted, by the use of other-worldly, mystical, automatic associations. Descriptors that readily come to mind when I think of the best of these stories are oneiric and magical (sur)realist.
In some stories, Hofmannsthal is able to take a common message – in this case, the imminence and ubiquity of mortality – and reworks it into something wholly innovative and compelling. In “Tale of the Veiled Woman,” a miner’s wife eagerly awaits the return of her husband from work. We see her wring her hands, running through her mind on a loop the dozens of things that could have gone wrong at the mine that day. At the mine, the husband encounters the woman in the veil, whose presence preternaturally attunes him to the concerns of another world. When he arrives home, he notices that his body no longer casts a shadow against his house and this, quite rightly, worries him. Over the dinner table, he tries to avoid the light of the kerosene lamp; he has noticed that the face of his wife, beautiful, young, and milky that morning, is now a skull stretched over with a piece of tallow-colored skin, a walking corpse. Unable to cope with this horrible vision (is it just a vision?), he readies a chariot and escapes from his family.
In “Tale of the 672nd Night,” a man lives a solitary life, accompanied only by his faithful servants who, in carefully sustained paranoid delusion, he thinks are always watching him. Seeking a debouche from his house, he sets out to escape them, only to find himself chased by a series of characters that he slowly discovers are actually avatars of his servants Caught in a dead end, trying to find still another escape, he is kicked by a horse. Efforts by local townspeople to help him are futile, and he dies in a small, dark room, totally antithetical the gigantic, empty manse he is used to. But at least he is free of the help.
The title story takes the form of a long letter to renowned scientist Francis Bacon, written from one among his circle of literary friends who wants apologize for the recent lack of literary output. In his letter, Lord Chandos details a most peculiar symptom: he is unable to formulate the most simple of thoughts. (Yes, he is writing this in a lengthy, eloquent reader, so you need a healthy suspension of disbelief.) Here, too, Chandos claims moments of heightened sensation or afflatus, but they are of no use in helping him overcome his newfound crisis: “As soon, however, as this strange enchantment falls from me, I find myself confused; wherein this harmony transcending me and the entire world consisted, and how it made itself known to me, I could present in sensible words as little as I could say anything precise about the inner movements of my intestines or a congestion of my blood.” For anyone deeply invested in the task of writing, this story haunts the imagination like a specter; for all the spookiness of some of the other stories, this one looms largest. Some have suggested that this letter has autobiographical elements, as it conspicuously marks Hofmannsthal’s transition from the composition of lyric poetry to drama and libretti. Perhaps it is an ode to the impuissance of literature as Hofmannsthal knew it, a cue for the ushering in of a brave, new modernism.
February 20, 2025
Impressionist shorts. The title story is good on the fragility/limits of language. My other favorite is Two Couples.
June 19, 2016
I learnt about this book while I was reading a Thai fiction on fictionlog in which the protagonist is diagnosed to have Lord Chandos syndrome which means he's losing his ability to describe things with words.
This book is a collection of short stories, some of them are just one page long, written by a talented Viennese poet, Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. Lord Chandos letter is the last chapter of the book and in my opinion, is the most interesting and mesmerising. If this book consists of just this one story, then I would have given it five stars. The story is the letter written by Lord Chandos about his “linguistic crisis”. He has not been able to write or to talk as he used to because he finds words are not enough anymore.
For the other stories, I found them strange (in an interesting way) and compelling, but pretty unsatisfying. For some of them, I really don't know whether they are intelligent or just simply pointless. However Hoffmannsthal’s writing is utterly beautiful, that is for sure. I really liked Tale of the 672nd Night, Tale of the Veiled Woman and Reflection.
This book is a collection of short stories, some of them are just one page long, written by a talented Viennese poet, Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. Lord Chandos letter is the last chapter of the book and in my opinion, is the most interesting and mesmerising. If this book consists of just this one story, then I would have given it five stars. The story is the letter written by Lord Chandos about his “linguistic crisis”. He has not been able to write or to talk as he used to because he finds words are not enough anymore.
It is that the language in which I might have been granted the opportunity not only to write but also to think is not Latin or English, or Italian, or Spanish, but a language of which I know not one word, a language in which mute things speak to me and in which I will perhaps have something to say for myself someday when I am dead and standing before an unknown judge.
For the other stories, I found them strange (in an interesting way) and compelling, but pretty unsatisfying. For some of them, I really don't know whether they are intelligent or just simply pointless. However Hoffmannsthal’s writing is utterly beautiful, that is for sure. I really liked Tale of the 672nd Night, Tale of the Veiled Woman and Reflection.
December 21, 2024
La celebèrrima carta de Lord Chandos! No sabia massa bé què esperar, i al cap i a la fi no esperava res en concret: m'ha semblat captivadora, dotada d'una gran bellesa; potser farcida d'adjectius, espessa per moments, però evidentment, degut al seu caràcter fictici, un estil més que adequat per l'època que preten. L'estat que narra no m'és aliè, la pèrdua del sentit de l'escriptura quan es presenta, a uns ulls fascinats, incapaç de copsar la meravella que és tota realitat. El penúltim paràgraf m'ha encantat: la llengua amb què el món li parla, que és l'únic que empraria per a parlar ell també, no la sap ni la pot aprendre; aquí radica la seva suposada negació a seguir escrivint.
2a lectura: Increible, molt més propera, Hofmannsthal sembla apropar-se vertiginosament a la tensió pròpia de van Gogh, la condició de tot Art vertader, que sobrepassa la ficció. Així, Chandos es torna incapaç de seguir escrivint literatura perquè les lletres i les paraules se li fonen al cap, perdut qualsevol atisbe de representativitat, condemnat a la consciència inexiliable de la seva falsedat. Temps fa que vam oblidar que les paraules no són les coses, que la literatura no és la vida, i que el món en sí, la Veritat del món, només és comprensible a partir d’una escolta purament intuïtiva, més enllà del regne del lógos o la paraula humana. I d’aquí, d’aquesta escolta, sorgeix l’Art, la Poesia o la Pintura que contenen un bri de Veritat. Excels.
2a lectura: Increible, molt més propera, Hofmannsthal sembla apropar-se vertiginosament a la tensió pròpia de van Gogh, la condició de tot Art vertader, que sobrepassa la ficció. Així, Chandos es torna incapaç de seguir escrivint literatura perquè les lletres i les paraules se li fonen al cap, perdut qualsevol atisbe de representativitat, condemnat a la consciència inexiliable de la seva falsedat. Temps fa que vam oblidar que les paraules no són les coses, que la literatura no és la vida, i que el món en sí, la Veritat del món, només és comprensible a partir d’una escolta purament intuïtiva, més enllà del regne del lógos o la paraula humana. I d’aquí, d’aquesta escolta, sorgeix l’Art, la Poesia o la Pintura que contenen un bri de Veritat. Excels.
October 18, 2022
"Pues mi sentimiento feliz e innombrado surgirá del fuego de un pastor lejano y solitario antes que de la contemplación del cielo estrellado; del último chirrido de un grullo moribundo, cuando el viento otoñal trae ya las nubes invernales sobre los campos abandonados, que del majestuoso retumbar de un órgano. Y a veces me comparo en mis pensamientos con Craso, el orador del que se cuenta que estaba tan encariñado con la morena domesticada que vivía en su estanque, un pez apático, mudo y de ojos rojos, que terminó convirtiéndose en el rumor de la ciudad; y cuando un día, en el senado, Domicio le reprochó haber derramado lágrimas por la muerte de ese pez y quiso dejarlo como un loco, Craso le respondió: <>. "
March 15, 2021
Escribir una reseña sobre este libro es inverosímil. En una sobria epístola, von Hofmannsthal nos presenta la angustia de la descripción imposible, la perseverante búsqueda de los sucesos simultáneos, el lenguaje no hablado, el hablar sin lengua. Su sujeto, abdicando este como principio ordenador de la realidad, sólo puede sentir la multiplicidad en lo concreto; invalida poder tejer una arquitectura emocional, o componer una jerarquia cósmica, pues las vivencias son incoercibles, y son sólo corruptibles por el sintagma, la frase, y la adjetivación. Un mundo hablado en silencio, así vivirá hasta el último de sus días el joven aristócrata, lacónico pero afable, sin tocar un solo libro, sin acercarse nunca más a las amuralladas palabras que él presiente constantes a su alrededor.
October 2, 2021
0,4 estrellas
Chandos descubre así que la cumbre más alta de su destino literario no son las trompetas del éxito, las felicitaciones de la crítica o un lugar inmortal en la historia de las letras. Su verdadera cima es cabalgar, silencioso, entre las colmenas de la miel siempre
nueva de la mañana
Lo mismo que los místicos, Chandos aprenderá a callar y percibir las cosas libres de
nuestras propias palabras o símbolos. Chandos recupera la cercanía de las cosas que
hemos perdido al reemplazarlas por los tibios y desencarnados conceptos.
Chandos descubre así que la cumbre más alta de su destino literario no son las trompetas del éxito, las felicitaciones de la crítica o un lugar inmortal en la historia de las letras. Su verdadera cima es cabalgar, silencioso, entre las colmenas de la miel siempre
nueva de la mañana
Lo mismo que los místicos, Chandos aprenderá a callar y percibir las cosas libres de
nuestras propias palabras o símbolos. Chandos recupera la cercanía de las cosas que
hemos perdido al reemplazarlas por los tibios y desencarnados conceptos.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 134 reviews