Anatol (acting)

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Arthur Schnitzler - Anatol, Berlin 1893.jpg

Anatol is a one-act cycle by Arthur Schnitzler . It appeared as a book edition in the autumn of 1892, predated to the year 1893 . The introductory poem comes from Loris , a pseudonym of the young Hugo von Hofmannsthal , who was friends with Schnitzler. The pieces were performed individually; the first joint performance took place on December 3, 1910 in the Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna and in the Lessingtheater in Berlin.

Emergence

The cycle was created for almost a decade, between 1883 and 1891, and in no particular order. For the first edition, Schnitzler not only arranged them differently from the way they were created, but also chose a different arrangement than the previous publications of the texts suggested.

Order of origin Chronology (first print) First edition
Anatol's wedding morning episode Question to fate
episode Question to fate Christmas shopping
Question to fate Anatol's wedding morning episode
Thinking stones Thinking stones Thinking stones
agony Christmas shopping Farewell souper
Farewell souper Farewell souper agony
Christmas shopping agony Anatol's wedding morning

content

Cora in hypnosis . (Pencil drawing, Moritz Coschell , 1899)

The question of fate

Anatol and his friend Max discuss the problem that a man can never know for sure whether a woman is loyal to him or not. He himself advocates the thesis that a woman - love or not - can never be faithful by nature. He also suspects his current lover Cora of infidelity. The constant uncertainty, against which in his opinion there is no remedy, drives him almost crazy. Max advises him to try hypnosis . Anatol takes up this suggestion enthusiastically as it offers him the opportunity to finally dispel his doubts. As soon as the decision has been made, it can already be implemented: Cora comes home and asks Anatol himself to be hypnotized by him during the conversation, a request that he is of course happy to comply with. When he asks her under hypnosis whether she loves him, she answers with “yes!”. Encouraged by this success, Anatol also wants to ask the question of loyalty, but it turns out that he fears the truth and that the doubts he previously cursed about Cora's loyalty are more desirable to him than one that might be unpleasant for him and his pride Are truth. Regardless of the words in which his friend Max dresses the question “Are you loyal to me?” Anatol finds objections to every formulation, doubts the comprehensibility of the question, and finally even the general possibility of answering it, just so that he does not have to ask it. When Max finally, exasperated, confronts him and points out that all the objections put forward by Anatol are nonsensical and constructed, he finally makes a decision: He wants to ask his lover - but without Max, whom he sends to the door because of that. With Cora alone, he is overwhelmed by his feelings and wakes her up without having asked the question. With this, Anatol has gambled away his opportunity to “ask fate”: Cora makes it clear that she will never allow herself to be hypnotized again.

Anatol says goodbye to Gabriele . (Pencil drawing, Moritz Coschell , 1899)

Christmas shopping

It's Christmas Eve, just before the presents are being presented . Anatol is looking for a present for his current lover in town and meets Gabriele. In the course of the conversation between the two it becomes clear that she is an old lover of Anatol, but who ultimately refused him and now has husbands and children herself. When she learns that Anatol is looking for a present for his current love, she offers to help him, a proposal that Anatol also gladly accepts. But after she found out that Anatol's “ sweet girl ” is a woman from the suburbs, that is, belongs to a lower social class, her participation quickly turns into mockery.

The dialogue that is now developing between her and Anatol contrasts the simple, natural life in the suburbs with the artificial, non-committal life of the (upper) middle class in Vienna itself. Gabriele, a product of this “big world”, looks down with contempt at the “little world” into which Anatol takes refuge through his love affair. The reason for this flight is his longing for fixed values ​​such as truth and pure love, which he is unable to find in the “big world” with its non-binding lovemaking.

But Anatol is clear that this life in the “small world” is only a temporary paradise: He is completely rooted in the dazzling, unsteady “big world” and is himself a master of non-binding love-making. As an actor in life, like all his contemporaries, he only reaches out to the “small world” without ultimately leaving the big one. So he replied to Gabriele's question whether he was “everything” to this girl in the “little world” with the words: “Maybe ... today”.

Anatol is unable to bond with the girl, with the little world, as much as he longs for fixed values, he remains the dazzling adventurer who is ultimately not interested in a bond. But Gabriele feels stimulated and thoughtful by Anatol's longing for the "little world" and also feels her own longing for the distant "magic garden" of Anatol's lover. For his new love, she gives him a bouquet of flowers from a lady "who may love as much as she, but who didn't have the courage to do so".

episode

Anatol brings Max a box with lots of small packages of letters and memorabilia because he wants to go to the country, leave everything behind and “rearrange” his life. Each package contains a small poem, a flower, a curl or something that should remind him of the senders - these are Anatol's old friends. Max looks through this box with amusement and finds a package labeled "Episode". This is a memory of Bianca, a circus artist, with whom Anatol spent two romantic evenings several years ago and which he remembers particularly intensely, as hours of deepest insight into the essence of "love": nobody before or after her means Anatol to have been so loved, while to him, the knower, this "episode" appeared as if in his memory while experiencing it. Almost compassionate, yet romantically transfigured, he remembers the emotional gap between himself and Bianca and believes himself to be a true magician of love who, by conjuring up the right “mood”, can “feel where [everyone else] just [enjoy] ]! ”Max listens to his friend in amusement, but objects that such a“ magic current ”as Anatol can produce out of himself tends to forget the object of his mood art - he, Max, knew Bianca quite well and better than his friend because his interest in her was more rational. Anatol has barely finished his report when Bianca, who is on tour once again in town, meets with Max. Enthusiastic about the idea of ​​meeting the “muse” of his perfect memory and seeing himself confirmed in a certain way, Anatol hides when she enters. But when he recently ventured out and waited overjoyed to be recognized, there was no confirmation at all: Bianca did not recognize the old friend, and Anatol left the house hit. Taking revenge on behalf of his friend, Max initially refuses Bianca the familiar, conversational tone of old days, throws the package labeled “Episode” into the fire and only slowly lets Bianca engage herself in a conversation about her latest adventures.

Emilie in front of the fireplace . (Pencil drawing, Moritz Coschell, 1899)

Thinking stones

Anatol goes through Emilie's desk and finds a red ruby and a black diamond . She kept it, even though the two had destroyed all memories of their previous loved ones. He asks her and she answers first that the ruby ​​is from her mother's chain. But that's not the essential thing, because she wore this locket on the night of her first visit. He goes on to ask why she kept the other black stone. She replies that it is worth ¼ million. He throws the diamond into the fire and she tries by all means to get it out of the fire. Anatol leaves the room with the word "Whore".

Farewell souper

Anatol wants to end the relationship with Annie and meets with Max in the restaurant. Meanwhile, he already has someone else who is much more humble than Annie. There is an agreement between Anatol and Annie that they break up before they cheat on each other. Annie comes into the restaurant and wants to break up with him. However, Anatol tells her about his relationship and turns it around so that he ended the relationship. Annie leaves the restaurant furious.

agony

Anatol and Max are in Anatol's apartment. Max leaves the house. Else comes to Anatol a little late. Else is married and is cheating on her husband with Anatol. Anatol would like to have her to himself, move away with her. But Else doesn't want that and has to leave again. She puts him off for tomorrow.

Anatol's wedding morning

Anatol is supposed to get married and celebrated his bachelorette party the day before. Ilona is still in bed. First he tells her that he is going to friends and that she cannot come with him. But then he confesses to her that he is going to a wedding. Anatol leaves the house and goes to his wedding. She swears revenge, but Max calms her down.

interpretation

On the outside, Anatol looks like a happy person with many love affairs. However, if you take a closer look at him, it becomes apparent that he is driven by fears of a partnership and that a real partnership never comes about. Womanizerism is not described as a positive quality, but causes inability to relate and fear of infidelity. The male vanities are repeatedly violated in this piece and influence Anatol in his thoughts and actions.

All in all, it is noticeable that Anatol's relationship with women changes from episode to episode in the course of the play: In the first episode, he still effectively has the opportunity to “ask fate”, to discover the truth: his beloved is hypnotized, Anatol is actually, in a certain sense, the “God” he feels himself to be: The power of knowledge is given to him, that he does not use it, lies solely in himself: he does not dare to ask the question , out of pride and “because [his] imagination is a thousand times more important than the truth”. This quasi omnipotent position of Anatol changes more and more through the piece: In the “Episodes” he is no longer recognized, during the “Farewell Supper” Annie defends himself against Anatol's attempt to enforce his initiative, his right to solely shape the relationship on “Wedding morning” the initial position of the hero is completely reversed: Here Anatol is completely at the mercy of his lover: She could cancel the planned wedding and thus completely sabotage his further - even if only momentary - life planning, Anatol cannot say anything or do to solve the crisis. Significantly, it will no longer be Anatol who solves the conflict: Max has to help and put things in order according to Anatol, namely after he has finally left the stage with an "Oh!"

In the first act he wants to hypnotize Cora to find out if she is unfaithful to him. However, he is afraid of the truth and breaks off the hypnosis. Anatol suppresses his fears. According to Sigmund Freud, this is one of the ways into the unconscious . This usually leads to neurosis and psychosis . Maybe Max is the real womanizer in this play, but he doesn't tell it.

Anatol's megalomania : This act was supposed to be the final act for Anatol, but was then replaced by Anatol's wedding morning. It shows Anatol as an aged man who still has not achieved more in life.

Prologue : The prologue should represent the mood that also prevails in Anatol. This is superficiality and the world as a theater in which people act for each other.

See also

Wiktionary: Anatol  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

expenditure

First prints (chronological)

  • Episode . In: An der Schöne Blauen Donau , Vol. 4, H. 18, [15. September 1889], pp. 424-426. ( online )
  • The question of fate . In: Moderne Dichtung , Vol. 1, H. 5, May 1, 1890, pp. 299–306 ( online )
  • Anatol's wedding morning . In: Moderne Dichtung, Vol. 1, Vol. 2, H. 1, July 1, 1890, pp. 431–442 ( online )

First edition

Arthur Schnitzler: Anatol. Verlag des Bibliographisches Bureau, Berlin 1893 ( digitized and full text in the German text archive )

Historical-critical edition

  • Anatol. Historical-critical edition. Edited by Evelyne Polt-Heinzl and Isabella Schwentner with the assistance of Gerhard Hubmann. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter 2012

literature

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ http://www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Schnitzler,+Arthur/Dramen/Anatol
  2. ↑ The following table follows: AS: Anatol. Historical-critical edition. Edited by Evelyne Polt-Heinzl and Isabella Schwentner with the assistance of Gerhard Hubmann. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter 2012, p. 4.