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{{Short description|Austrian author and dramatist (1862–1931)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name          = Arthur Schnitzler
| image         = Arthur Schnitzler 1912 (cropped).jpg
| imagesize     =
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| caption       = Arthur Schnitzler, {{circa|1912}}
| pseudonym     =
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| birth_date     = {{Birth date|1862|5|15|df=y}}<ref>{{cite news|title=This day, May 15, in Jewish history|url=http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/cjnconnect/blogs/article_057a78b4-3f44-5375-a20d-a850a62b2194.html|newspaper=Cleveland Jewish News|access-date=18 May 2014|archive-date=19 May 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140519165352/http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/cjnconnect/blogs/article_057a78b4-3f44-5375-a20d-a850a62b2194.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
| birth_place    = [[Vienna]], [[Austrian Empire|Austria]]
| death_date     = {{Death date and age|1931|10|21|1862|5|15|df=y}}
| death_place    = Vienna, [[First Austrian Republic|Austria]]
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| occupation    = Novelist, [[short story]] writer and playwright
| language      = German
| nationality   = Austrian
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| period        =
| genre         = Short stories, novels, plays
| subject       =
| movement      = [[Decadent movement]], [[Modernism]]
| notableworks  = ''[[Liebelei (play)|Liebelei]]'', ''[[La Ronde (play)|Reigen]]'', ''[[Fräulein Else (novella)|Fräulein Else]]'', ''[[Professor Bernhardi]]''
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'''Arthur Schnitzler''' (15 May 1862 – 21 October 1931) was an [[Austrian literature|Austrian author]] and dramatist. He is considered one of the most significant representatives of Viennese Modernism. Schnitzler’s works, which include psychological dramas and narratives, dissected [[turn-of-the-century]] Viennese [[bourgeois]] life, making him a sharp and stylistically conscious chronicler of Viennese society around 1900. Schnitzler's Jewish upbringing and the sexual content of his works made them controversial or banned in his time and beyond.

== Life ==
[[File:Schnitzler-birthplace Praterstrasse1.JPG|thumb|Schnitzler's birthplace Praterstrasse 16]]
[[File:Arthur Schnitzler (um 1878).jpg|thumb|Schnitzler in 1878]]
Arthur Schnitzler was born at Praterstrasse 16, [[Leopoldstadt]], Vienna, capital of the [[Austrian Empire]] (as of 1867, part of the dual monarchy of [[Austria-Hungary]]). He was the son of a prominent Hungarian [[laryngologist]], [[Johann Schnitzler]] (1835–1893), and Luise Markbreiter (1838–1911), a daughter of the Viennese doctor Philipp Markbreiter. His parents were both from [[History of the Jews in Austria|Jewish]] families.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.amazon.com/Road-Open-Verite-European-Classics-ebook/dp/B00KUFP4QU/|title=The Road to The Open (JC Verite European Classics Book 1) – Kindle edition by Arthur Schnitzler, J. Chakravarti, Horace Samuel. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.|date=June 2014 }}</ref> In 1879 Schnitzler began studying medicine at the [[University of Vienna]] and in 1885 he received his doctorate of medicine. He began work at [[Vienna General Hospital|Vienna's General Hospital]] ({{langx|de|link=no|Allgemeines Krankenhaus der Stadt Wien}}), but ultimately abandoned the practice of medicine in favour of writing.

On 26 August 1903, Schnitzler married Olga Gussmann (1882–1970), a 21-year-old aspiring actress and singer who came from a Jewish middle-class family. They had a son, [[Heinrich Schnitzler|Heinrich]] (1902–1982), born on 9 August 1902. In 1909 they had a daughter, Lili, who committed suicide in 1928. The Schnitzlers separated in 1921. Schnitzler died on 21 October 1931 in Vienna of a [[brain haemorrhage]]. In 1938, following the [[Anschluss]], his son Heinrich went to the United States and did not return to Austria until 1959; he is the father of the Austrian musician and conservationist [[Michael Schnitzler]], born in 1944 in Berkeley, California, who moved to Vienna with his parents in 1959.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.regenwald.at/de/project-information/who-is-michael-schnitzler.html |title=Michael Schnitzler - Musician and Conservationist |access-date=25 January 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120220033139/http://www.regenwald.at/de/project-information/who-is-michael-schnitzler.html |archive-date=20 February 2012  }}</ref>

==Literary works==
Schnitzler's works were often controversial, both for their frank description of sexuality (in a letter to Schnitzler [[Sigmund Freud]] confessed "I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition – although actually as a result of sensitive introspection – everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons")<ref>[http://www.research-horizons.cam.ac.uk/features/schnitzler-s-hidden-manuscripts-explored.aspx Schnitzler's hidden manuscripts explored] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100315122800/http://www.research-horizons.cam.ac.uk/features/schnitzler-s-hidden-manuscripts-explored.aspx |date=15 March 2010 }} at research-horizons.cam.ac.uk</ref> and for their strong stand against [[antisemitism]], represented by works such as his play ''[[Professor Bernhardi]]'' and his novel ''[[Der Weg ins Freie]]''. However, although Schnitzler was Jewish, Professor Bernhardi and Fräulein Else are among the few clearly identified Jewish protagonists in his work.
[[File:Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931) 1906 © Aura Hertwig (1861–1944) OeNB 3779022.jpg|thumb|Schnitzler in 1906]]
Schnitzler was branded as a pornographer after the release of his play ''[[La Ronde (play)|Reigen]]'', in which 10 pairs of characters are shown before and after the sexual act, leading and ending with a prostitute. The furor after this play was couched in the strongest antisemitic terms.<ref>[http://www.virtualvienna.net/columns/vinal/arthur_schnitzler_scandal.html Arthur Schnitzler scandal] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070128074046/http://www.virtualvienna.net/columns/vinal/arthur_schnitzler_scandal.html |date=28 January 2007 }} at virtualvienna.net</ref> ''Reigen'' was made into a French language film in 1950 by the German-born director [[Max Ophüls]] as ''[[La Ronde (1950 film)|La Ronde]]''. The film achieved considerable success in the English-speaking world, with the result that Schnitzler's play is better known there under its French title. [[Richard Oswald]]'s film ''[[The Merry-Go-Round (film)|The Merry-Go-Round]]'' (1920), [[Roger Vadim]]'s ''[[Circle of Love (film)|Circle of Love]]'' (1964) and Otto Schenk's ''Der Reigen'' (1973) also are based on the play. A more recent adaptation is the [[Fernando Meirelles]]' film ''[[360 (film)|360]]''.

In the novella ''[[Fräulein Else (novella)|Fräulein Else]]'' (1924) Schnitzler may be rebutting a contentious critique of the Jewish character by [[Otto Weininger]] (1903) by positioning the sexuality of the young female Jewish protagonist.<ref>Barker, Andrew (2001). "Race, Sex and Character in Schnitzler's ''Fräulein Else''." ''German Life and Letters''. v. 54(1):1–9.</ref> The story, a first-person [[Stream of consciousness (narrative mode)|stream of consciousness]] narrative by a young aristocratic woman, reveals a moral dilemma that ends in tragedy.

In response to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about the critical view that his works all seemed to treat the same subjects, he replied "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?"<ref>{{Cite book|title=Vienna : a cultural history|last=Nicholas.|first=Parsons|date=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-537606-7|location=Oxford|oclc=221155367}}</ref> Despite his seriousness of purpose, Schnitzler frequently approaches the [[bedroom farce]] in his plays (and had an affair with  [[Adele Sandrock]], one of his actresses). ''Professor Bernhardi'', a play about a Jewish doctor who turns away a Catholic priest in order to spare a patient the realization that she is on the point of death, is his only major dramatic work without a sexual theme.

A member of the avant-garde group [[Young Vienna]] (''Jung-Wien''), Schnitzler toyed with formal as well as social conventions. With his 1900 novella ''Leutnant Gustl'', he was the first to write German fiction in stream-of-consciousness narration. The story is an unflattering portrait of its protagonist and of the army's obsessive code of formal honor. It caused Schnitzler to be stripped of his commission as a reserve officer in the medical corps – something that should be seen in the context of the rising tide of antisemitism of the time.

He specialized in shorter works like novellas and one-act plays. And in his short stories like "The Green Tie" ("Die grüne Krawatte") he showed himself to be one of the early masters of [[microfiction]]. However he also wrote two full-length novels: ''[[Der Weg ins Freie]]'' about a talented but not very motivated young composer, a brilliant description of a segment of pre-World War I Viennese society; and the artistically less satisfactory ''[[Therese (novel)|Therese]]''.

In addition to his plays and fiction, Schnitzler meticulously kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death. The manuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages, is most notable for Schnitzler's casual descriptions of sexual engagements; he was often in relationships with several women at once (most of his liaisons occurred with an embroiderer named “Jeanette”) and for a period of some years he kept a record of every orgasm. Collections of Schnitzler's letters also have been published.
[[File:Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931) 1927 © Ernst Förster (1879–1943) OeNB 7266842.jpg|thumb|Schnitzler in 1926]]
Schnitzler's works were called "Jewish filth" by [[Adolf Hitler]] and were banned by [[Nazism|the Nazis]] in Austria and Germany. In 1933, when [[Joseph Goebbels]] organized [[Nazi book burnings|book burnings]] in Berlin and other cities, Schnitzler's works were thrown into flames along with those of other Jews, including [[Albert Einstein|Einstein]], [[Karl Marx|Marx]], [[Franz Kafka|Kafka]], Freud and [[Stefan Zweig]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/schnitz.htm |title=Arthur Schnitzler |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206131904/http://kirjasto.sci.fi/schnitz.htm |archive-date=6 February 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

His novella ''[[Fräulein Else (novella)|Fräulein Else]]'' has been adapted a number of times, including the German silent film ''[[Fräulein Else (1929 film)|Fräulein Else]]'' (1929), starring [[Elisabeth Bergner]], and the 1946 Argentine film ''[[The Naked Angel]]'', starring [[Olga Zubarry]].

In 1973, five of Schnitzler's short stories were adapted as the BBC televsision series "Vienna 1900: Games with Love and Death."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080302/?ref_=ttrel_ov |title=Vienna 1900 TV Mini Series 1973–1974|website=[[IMDb]] }}</ref>

== Archive ==

The majority of Schnitzler's archive, which consists of 40,000 pages worth of documents, was saved from the Nazis by a British man, Eric A. Blackall. Acting at the behest of Schnitzler's widow (actually his ex-wife), Olga, Blackhall arranged for the documents to be secretly transported to Cambridge University under a diplomatic seal. 
After the war, this created a tricky legal situation, as Schnitzler's ex-wife, Olga did not have the legal right to donate the documents. In fact, Schnitzler had bequeathed them to his son, Heinrich, who was not in Vienna at the time.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Flood |first1=Alison |title=Arthur Schnitzler archive formally acquired by Cambridge University |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/01/arthur-schnitzler-archive-formally-acquired-by-cambridge-university |access-date=12 June 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=November 1, 2015}}</ref> 
During the Second World War and afterwards, Heinrich Schnitzler tried to get the documents back but did not succeed. Thomas Trenkler wrote in the newspaper ''Kurier'' that the acquisition of the documents by the British was not legitimate and that the documents should be handed to Schnitzler's remaining family in 2015.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Trenkler |first1=Thomas |title=Fall Schnitzler: "Aufgewühlte" Nachfahren |url=https://kurier.at/kultur/fall-schnitzler-aufgewuehlte-nachfahren/108.698.700 |access-date=12 June 2024 |agency=Kurier |date=January 18, 2015}}</ref> Schnitzler's grandsons, Michael and Peter, announced that they indeed wanted the documents handed over to them.

== Selected works ==

=== Plays ===
* ''[[Anatol (play)|Anatol]]'' (1893), a series of seven acts revolving around a bourgeois playboy and his immature relationships.
* ''Flirtation'' (''[[Liebelei (play)|Liebelei]]'' – 1895), also known as ''The Reckoning'', which was made into [[Liebelei (film)|a film]] by [[Max Ophüls]] in 1933, and [[Pierre Gaspard-Huit]] in 1958 (''[[Christine (1958 film)|Christine]]''), and also adapted as ''[[Dalliance]]'' by [[Tom Stoppard]] (1986)<ref>''Dalliance'' was staged at the National Theatre by Peter Wood. It opened in the Lyttelton Theatre 27 May 1986.</ref> and ''Sweet Nothings'' by [[David Harrower]] for the [[Young Vic]] in 2010.<ref>''Sweet Nothings'' was directed by [[Luc Bondy]] at the [[Young Vic]] and opened on 25 February 2010.</ref>
* ''Fair Game'' (''Freiwild'' – 1896)
* ''Light-'O-Love'' (1896)
* ''[[La Ronde (play)|Reigen]]'' (1897), more usually called ''[[La Ronde (play)|La Ronde]]'' is still frequently presented. [[Max Ophüls]] directed the [[La Ronde (1950 film)|first movie adaptation]] of the play in 1950; [[Roger Vadim]] directed a second version in 1964, and [[Otto Schenk]] a third version in 1973. In 1998, it was reworked by British playwright [[David Hare (playwright)|David Hare]] as ''[[The Blue Room (play)|The Blue Room]]''.<ref>''The Blue Room'' was staged at the [[Donmar Warehouse]] in London by Sam Mendes, opening on 22 September 1998.</ref> It was also adapted by theatrical composer [[Michael John LaChiusa]] into an [[Off-Broadway]] musical called ''[[Hello Again (musical)|Hello Again]]'' in 1994. Suzanne Bachner did a modern adaptation called "Circle" about 21st-century sexual mores in 2002. Austrian composer [[Bernhard Lang]] wrote an opera, ''Der Reigen'', in 2012; it premiered in 2014 at the [[Schwetzingen Festival]]. 
* ''[[Die Gefährtin]]'' (1899)
* ''Paracelsus'' (1899)
* ''The Green Cockatoo'' (''[[Der grüne Kakadu]]'' – 1899). In 1954-1956, composer [[Richard Mohaupt]] adapted the play into the one-act opera ''Der grüne Kakadu'', which premiered at the [[Hamburg State Opera]] on 16 September 1958.
* ''The Lonely Way'' (''Der einsame Weg'' – 1904)
* ''Intermezzo'' (''Zwischenspiel'' – 1904)
* ''Der Ruf des Lebens'' (1906)
* ''Countess Mizzi or the Family Reunion'' (''Komtesse Mizzi oder Der Familientag'' – 1907)
* ''Living Hours'' (1911)
* ''[[Young Medardus (play)|Young Medardus]]'' (''Der junge Medardus'' – 1910)
* ''The Vast Domain'' (''Das weite Land'' – 1911). The play was adapted as ''[[Undiscovered Country]]'' by [[Tom Stoppard]] (1979).<ref>''Undiscovered Country'' was staged at the [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]] by [[Peter Wood (director)|Peter Wood]]. It opened in the [[Olivier Theatre]] 20 June 1979.</ref> Three film versions of this play have been made, the first by [[Ernst Lothar]] in 1960 with [[Attila Hörbiger]] as Hofreiter, the second by [[Peter Beauvais]] in 1970 with [[O. W. Fischer]], the third one (''[[The Distant Land]]'') in 1986 by [[Luc Bondy]], starring [[Michel Piccoli]].
* ''[[Professor Bernhardi]]'' (1912)
* ''The Comedy of Seduction'' (''Komödie der Verführung'' – 1924)
* ''Comedies of Words and Other Plays'' (1917)

=== Novels ===
* ''[[Der Weg ins Freie|The Road into the Open]]'' (''Der Weg ins Freie'' – 1908)
* ''[[Therese (novel)|Therese. Chronik eines Frauenlebens]]'' (1928)
[[File:Wien - Schnitzler-Denkmal im Türkenschanzpark.JPG|thumb|upright|Memorial in Vienna]]

=== Short stories and novellas ===
* ''Dying'' (''Sterben'' – 1895)
* ''None but the Brave'' (''Leutnant Gustl'' – 1900)
* ''Berta Garlan'' (1900)
* ''Blind Geronimo and his Brother'' (''Der blinde Geronimo und sein Bruder'' – 1902)
* ''The Prophecy'' (''Die Weissagung'' – 1905)
* ''Casanova's Homecoming'' (''Casanovas Heimfahrt'' – 1918)
* ''[[Fräulein Else (novella)|Fräulein Else]]'' (1924)
* ''Rhapsody'' – also published as ''[[Dream Story]]'' (''Traumnovelle'' – 1925/26), later adapted as the film ''[[Eyes Wide Shut]]'' by American director [[Stanley Kubrick]]
* ''Night Games'' (''Spiel im Morgengrauen'' – 1926)
* ''Flight into Darkness'' (''Flucht in die Finsternis'' – 1931)
* ''The Death of a Bachelor''
* ''Late Fame'' (2014, written c.1894-1895<ref>Hemecker, Wilhelm and Osterle, David (2014) "Afterword" to ''Late Fame''. pp.149-151. {{Isbn|978-1-78227-370-7}}</ref>)

=== Nonfiction ===
* ''My Youth in Vienna'' (''Jugend in Wien''), an autobiography published posthumously in 1968
* ''Diary, 1879–1931''

== References ==
'''Notes'''
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*[[James Huneker|J. G. Huneker]], ''Ivory, Apes, and Peacocks'' (New York, 1915)
* [[Ludwig Lewisohn]], ''The Modern Drama'' (New York, 1915)
* [[Theodor Reik]], ''Arthur Schnitzler als Psychologe'' (Minden, 1913)
* H. B. Samuel, ''Modernities'' (London, 1913)
*{{cite thesis |last= Wolpaw|first= Frances Rickel|date= 1979|title= Studies in obsession Otto Weininger, Arthur Schnitzler, Heimito von Doderer |location= New Haven|publisher= Yale University}}

== See also ==

* [[List of Austrian writers]]

== External links ==
{{Commons category|Arthur Schnitzler}}
{{Collier's poster|Schnitzler, Arthur|Arthur Schnitzler}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=3010| name=Arthur Schnitzler}}
* {{FadedPage|id=Schnitzler, Arthur|name=Arthur Schnitzler|author=yes}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Arthur Schnitzler}}
* {{Librivox author |id=1487}}
* {{IBDB name}}
* {{OL author}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070926230925/http://www.literature.at/elib/index.php5?title=Arthur_Schnitzler_-_1862-1931 Additional works by Arthur Schnitzler (eLibrary Projekt – eLib)]
* [http://www.schnitzler-archiv.uni-freiburg.de Schnitzler Archive, a research institution at the german Freiburg University which holds a copy of Schnitzler's literary estate such as drafts of his works and some unpublished works]
* [http://www.pushkinpress.com PushkinPress.com English editions of works] by [[Pushkin Press]]
* [https://schnitzler-mikrofilme.acdh.oeaw.ac.at Schnitzler’s paper in the Cambridge University Library], digitized microfilms
* [https://schnitzler-tagebuch.acdh.oeaw.ac.at Schnitzler’s Diary online] (German)
* [https://schnitzler-briefe.acdh.oeaw.ac.at Schnitzler's Correspondence with Fellow Writers online] (German)

{{Arthur Schnitzler}}
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