The Whole Difference: Selected Writings

by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, J.D. McClatchy (Editor)

Hugo von Hofmannsthal is one of the modern era's most important writers, but his fame as Richard Strauss's pioneering collaborator on such operas as Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau ohne Schatten has obscured his other remarkable writings: his precocious lyric poetry, inventive short fiction, keen essays, and visionary plays. The Whole Difference, which includes new translations as well as classic ones long out of print, is a fresh introduction to the enormous range of this extraordinary artist, and the most comprehensive collection of Hofmannsthal's writings in English.

Selected and edited by the poet and librettist J. D. McClatchy, this collection includes early lyric poems; short prose works, including "The Tale of Night Six Hundred and Seventy-Two," "A Tale of the Cavalry," and the famous "Letter of Lord Chandos"; two full-length plays, The Difficult Man and The Tower; as well as the first act of The Cavalier of the Rose. From the glittering salons of imperial Vienna to the bloodied ruins of Europe after the Great War, the landscape of Hofmannsthal's world stretches across the extremes of experience. This collection reflects those extremes, including both the sparkling social comedy of "the difficult man" Hans Karl, so sensitive that he cannot choose between the two women he loves, and the haunting fictional letter to Francis Bacon in which Lord Chandos explains why he can no longer write. Complete with an introduction by McClatchy, this collection reveals an artist whose unusual subtlety and depth will enthrall readers.

Genres: Poetry

512 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Austrian 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...

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hugo von Hofmannsthal is best know as the librettist for some of Richard Strauss' greatest operas, including Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau ohne Schatten. This collection brings together poems, fiction, essays, and plays, including the first act of Rosenkavalier. Strongly influenced by the Symbolists, Hofmannsthal's prose is murky, and there is usually a lot going on just beneath the surface of his work. In his essay "Shakespeare's Kings and Noblemen", Hofmannsthal specifically remarks on that sense of what lies beneath the surface: "Shakespeare needs to be played, because only then can we hear and see what he does not and cannot say. If he were to say what would be necessary to make uncreative readers understand him without seeing him acted, then he would cease to be Shakespeare." Hofmannsthal speaks of the "Atmosphere" of Shakespeare, locating it in just those moments of quiet action like this example from the play Julius Caesar, when Brutus lifts the lute out from under the boy singer on the night before the great battle: "Here, when Brutus, Caesar's murderer, picks up the lute, so that it shall not be broken, here as nowhere else do we face the tornado of existence that sucks us down. These are the flashes of lightning wherein a heart reveals itself completely" ..."And in Shakespeare they are legion. They are the cataclysms of his atmosphere."

The collection also includes the famous Letter to Lord Chandos, wherein Hofmannsthal struggles with the ability to express reality in words--"My case, in short, is this: I have completely lost the ability to think or speak coherently about anything," which means that the author of the letter abandons the vocation or profession of a writer because no word seems to him to express objective reality. In his novel Bartleby & Co, Enrique Vila-Matas remarked, "...this letter of Lord Chandos captures the essence of the crisis of literary expression which affected the generation of Viennese writers at the end of the nineteenth century and speaks of a crisis of confidence in the basic nature of literary expression and human communication, of language understood as universal, regardless of the different languages that are spoken." It was this crisis of confidence that drove Hofmannsthal further and further into the dream world of works like Die Frau ohne Schatten, a drama of nearly impenetrable symbolism saved only by Richard Strauss' musical setting. Without Strauss, Hofmannsthal would be very difficult to absorb, and for this reason his prose works have not achieved the acclaim of his opera libretti. Ultimately, these stories and poems are curiosities worth examining, but not writings to which many will want to return.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume presents a good cross-section of Hofmannsthal’s writings and includes poems, short stories, essays, plays, and Act I of the libretto to DER ROSENKAVALIER.

Hofmannsthal’s work reflects the dramatic cultural and social changes taking place in fin-de-siècle Vienna. He often presents vignettes rather than straightforward narrative, and the disjointedness of the text reflects the disjointedness of contemporary society.

To add to the confusion, Hofmannsthal is fond of overwrought allegory and symbolism, and one comes away with the feeling that a good portion of it is completely meaningless, beyond reflecting Hofmannsthal’s attempt to discover new meanings in old but now empty social forms.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in fin-de-siècle Vienna or modern culture history.

[Richard Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much unexpected material. I prefer his prose to his drama.

[Rose Webb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Tale of the Cavalry: 5 Stars

[Narcissus · Rating 4 out of 5]

a labyrinth of beauty and melancholy, a treasure trove for anyone who loves language that dances on the edge of the ineffable!