Hofmannsthal and Greek Myth: Expression and Performance by Philip Ward (review)

Abstract

538 Reviews Hofmannsthal and Greek Myth: Expression and Performance. By Philip Ward. (British and Irish Studies in German Language and Literature, 24) Oxford, Bern, and Brussels: Peter Lang. 2002. 295 pp. SwF 69; $29; ?44.50. ISBN 3906766 -44-6 (pbk). This book, originally a Cambridge Ph.D. dissertation, differsfrom previous works 'by laying significant stress on the cultural context in which Hofmannsthal's work was produced and received' (p. 16). It shows how Hofmannsthal repeatedly turned read? ings of Greek myth into the praxis of performance. The chapter on myth defines what would become for Hofmannsthal the essential problem of a coincidentia oppositorum between Eastern and Western modes of thought and culture. The author understands myth as a combination of a 'corpus of received stories' and a ' "life-renewing" (but never well-defined) agent' (p. 37). Greek myth offered Hofmannsthal 'polysemy and inexhaustibility over time' (p. 44). A sense of enduring values and of openness to life answered his need to make the best use of cultural heritage and to reformthe present. Philip Ward then examines the contrasting achievements oftwo translators of Greek works in the late nineteenth century, Adolf Wilbrandt and Ulrich von WilamowitzMoellendorf . He also shows how Hofmannsthal and Max Reinhardt drew critically on Wilamowitz's 'improved' translation of Euripides' Medea in 1904 and refashioned the use of the Chorus in Hofmannsthal's Odipus und die Sphinx in 1906. Euripides' 'dialectical' quality indicated a way of presenting Greek drama on the modern stage. Hofmannsthal's Alkestis, which owes much to Nietzsche and Maeterlinck, avoids a tragic end by showing wonder in life rather than absence of fear of death. The Vorspiel zur Antigone shows how reality can only be experienced in full on the stage, yet, as Ward points out, between 1900 and 1906 Hofmannsthal was to lose his faith in the capacity of words to render tragedy. Alfred Kerr's explanation of Odipus und die Sphinx as an elevation of the spoken word to opera, and Hofmannsthal's rewriting of Konig Odipus into a more dramatic and gesture-based text, supported Reinhardt's attempt to unite audience and performer.Ward traces Hofmannsthal's response to the theoretical writings on tragedy by Nietzsche, Hermann Bahr, and others, and claims that in about 1906 Hofmannsthal realized that the reasons for Goethe's 'avoidance of tragedy' would probably defeat him also. The year 1906, a turning point in Hof? mannsthal's career, 'marked the end of his effortsto rewrite Greek drama, his final break with Stefan George, and the start of his collaboration with Richard Strauss' (p. 96). He now abandoned tragedy in favour of comedy 'because he recognised incapacities both cultural and personal' (p. 97). The alien culture ofthe ancient Greeks, the sense of man being unwelcome in the world, and the verbal essence of Greek tragedy combined to steer Hofmannsthal towards comedy and opera. Using Mathias Mayer's phrase about Odipus und die Sphinx as 'not so much to "psychologise" myth as to "mythologise" the psyche' (pp. 101-02), Ward analyses Hofmannsthal's ambivalent attitude towards Freud's theories of the unconscious, his more favourable response to Novalis's notions of psychic wholeness, and his ex? ploration of the development and dissolution of the self. The relationship between 'Tat' and 'Opfer' emerges as the central thematic complex of Hofmannsthal's drama. Action becomes a threshold towards a new development in personal lives in which central characters lose their personal significance, and sacrifice offersa reidentification or way to higher levels of existence. As in the dialogue 'Gesprach iiber Gedichte', priest and victim are shown to be interchangeable. The individual appropriates his lot in a form of self-affirmationand psychic wholeness. It is unfortunately confusing that this section ends with Mayer's phrase being attributed to Otto Rank, a rare example of an unclear use of secondary literature. Elektra, Hofmannsthal's only completed play between 1899 and 1904, shows his artistic and financial incentives to fulfil a specific commission. He had found in MLR, 99.2, 2004 539 Reinhardt a director who was the rising star of German theatre and in Gerturd Eysoldt an actress more than ready to invest his text with emphasis on the power of gesture...