Few literary reputations have suffered from the vagaries of social, political, and cultural change as much as that of Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Widely regarded as the “boy wonder” of Vienna modernism due to the astonishing sophistication of his early essays (some written in his sixteenth year), the haunting atmospheres evoked in his lyric dramas, and above all the poems he wrote in his teens and early twenties, some of which remain among the most anthologized in German literature, he alienated many of his aesthetically-inclined admirers (notably Stefan George) by his turn away from poetry and lyric drama after the turn of the century, abandoning the select readership of
Blätter für die Kunst(
Pages devoted to Art, the journal edited by George) in search of engagement with a broader…
2616 words
Citation: Kovach, Thomas A.. "Hugo von Hofmannsthal". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 July 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2164, accessed 23 November 2024.]
