Stereotype and Destiny in Arthur Schnitzler’s Prose: Five Psycho-Sociological Readings

Description

What was the function of the invocation of destiny in the increasingly secularized era of turn-of-the-century Vienna? By exploring this question, Stereotype and Destiny in Arthur Schnitzler's Prose offers a new psycho-sociological perspective on the narrative works of Arthur Schnitzler. While Vienna 1900 as a site of crisis has been established in the scholarship, this book focuses on the presence of forces that deny the existence of said crisis and work to contain its subversive and critical potential. Stereotype and destiny emerge in Schnitzler's prose texts as a form of these counter-critical forces. In her readings, Kolkenbrock shows that stereotype and destiny serve as an interrelated coping mechanism for a central psychological conflict of modernity: the paradoxical need to be recognized as 'normal' and 'special' at the same time. While, through the complex of "stereotype and destiny," Schnitzler's prose addresses central modern questions of identity and subjecthood, Kolkenbrock's close readings also reveal how the texts inscribe themselves aesthetically in the literary tradition of Romanticism and as such offer crucial sources for understanding Schnitzler's representations of embattled subjecthood within broader social and aesthetic traditions. Cover Contents Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction Viennese Types and Habsburg Nostalgia The Ambivalent Problem of Modernity Destiny as Defence Mechanism Stereotypes as Defence Mechanism and Destiny Stereotype and Destiny and the Risk of Failure The Gothic Horror of Stereotype and Destiny A Psycho-Sociological Reading 1 Stereotypes and Physiognomy in Der Weg ins Freie (Road into the Open) Stereotypes and Images of ‘Normality’ Physiognomy and Destiny Stereotypes and Performative Speech Acts Recognitions and Repetitions 2 Madness and Investiture in Flucht in die Finsternis (Flight into Darkness) A Crisis of Investiture Diagnosis as Destiny Seductive Stereotypes of Madness Signs of Destiny Romantic Madness 3 Race and Destiny in Die Weissagung (The Prophecy) and Andreas Thameyers letzter Brief (Andreas Thameyer’s Last Letter) Destiny and Stereotypes of Jewishness in Die Weissagung (The Prophecy) Male Suicide as Destiny and Stereotypes of Blackness in Andreas Thameyers letzter Brief (Andreas Thameyer’s Last Letter) 4 Love as Destiny and Cliché in Die Fremde (The Stranger), Das Schicksal des Freiherrn von Leisenbohg (Baron Leisenbohg’s Destiny) and Das neue Lied (The New Song) Destiny and Stereotypes of Enigmatic Femininity in Die Fremde (The Stranger) Courtly Love and Seriality in Das Schicksal des Freiherrn von Leisenbohg (Baron Leisenbohg’s Destiny) Seriality and Performance in Das neue Lied (The New Song) 5 Dream, Destiny and Infectious Alterity in Traumnovelle (Dream Story) Failing Recognitions Coping Mechanisms Infection of the Norm Infected Performance Purification Conclusion Bibliography Index