To die (novella)

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Die is a novella by Arthur Schnitzler , written between February and July 1892 , which appeared in three episodes in the literary magazine Neue Deutsche Rundschau in Berlin at the end of 1894 . In November 1894, predated to 1895, S. Fischer published the text as a book, also in Berlin. Die is thus Schnitzler's first narrative text that was published independently in book form.

The title is ambiguous. With the waning and dying of the young, most likely consumptive Felix, his love for Marie also dies.

content

Felix, a patient of his friend, the doctor Alfred, considers himself terminally ill. So he wants certainty and gets Professor Bernard's diagnosis. Marie, his young lover, can hardly believe the professor's statement. Felix still has a year to live. At first, the reader does not learn the name of the disease or the nature of the complaints. Felix might well be a hypochondriac if it weren't for the professor's judgment. Marie desperate; wants to take his own life with Felix at once. The patient waves it away. You can still enjoy a little bit of life. Felix is ​​only able to do this in a cautious way. He always has to think about his end. Marie, on the other hand, suddenly comes to a new insight. She would like to continue enjoying her existence. Bernard dies suddenly. Doomed Felix triumphantly survived the professor.

Felix desires Marie. He wants to put an end to his life and murder Marie shortly before. Nonsense. He rejects the thought. Felix would like to own Marie for a while longer. The thought of murder fills him with secret pride. Only one thing bothers you. Marie won't go willingly. In his imagination, Felix soon circumnavigated this cliff: kissing his murderer hand, the coveted one dies. Felix has boundless, furious fear of death. Although Marie devotedly cares for the bedridden patient, empathy is becoming increasingly difficult for her. Alfred tries in vain to persuade Marie to leave the hospital room temporarily. She feels that Felix demands that she too should suffer. When Felix fell asleep, Marie sneaks out of the musty sick room. Sitting on a park bench, she is sure that Felix wants to drag her to her death with him. But she doesn't want to; breathes in the fresh air to the full. Felix is ​​frightened without Marie. Symptoms of the disease such as drowsiness, shortness of breath and dizziness are mentioned and suggest tuberculosis. Felix, who receives morphine from Alfred , accuses Marie and the friend of both letting him go to waste. Against the will of the doctor, the patient arranges a trip to the south. He wants to die with Marie on the night train journey. She is reluctant. Felix has meanwhile lost the strength to act. The patient has a hemorrhage in Meran . Marie calls Alfred by telegram. Felix repeats his murder attempt, which fails again. Marie escapes and runs into the incoming Alfred. Felix is ​​left alone, suffers a second hemorrhage and dies.

Contemporary reception

After reading the novella in front of a small group, including his friends Richard Beer-Hofmann , Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Felix Salten , Schnitzler noted in his diary on October 30, 1892: “Unexpected great success. - [...] words like 'beautiful', 'great' were buzzing around [...] ”. Georg Brandes wrote to Schnitzler on March 11, 1906: "You are brooding over death, as your dying already showed."

interpretation

  • According to Michaela L. Perlmann there are usually two deadly dangers for Schnitzler's protagonists: Either the duel or the illness.
  • Michael Scheffel notices clumsy expressions and individual clichés in Schnitzler's first prose.
  • According to Peter Sprengel , dying represents a kind of scientific experiment with literary means. The reader observes the lovers in the retort, as it were, and does not learn anything about their social environment.
  • According to Carl Pietzcker , the conclusion that can be drawn is that love has no chance against death as an inescapable fact. Feelings are not constants. If everything falls apart, then only comedy can be played.

expenditure

  • To die. Novella by Arthur Schnitzler. In: Neue Deutsche Rundschau (Free Stage), vol. 5 (1894), no. 10 (October 1894), pp. 969–988. H. 11 (November 1894), pp. 1073-1101. H. 12 (December 1894), pp. 1179-1191.
  • To die. Novella. Berlin: S. Fischer 1895 (pre-dated November 1894) ( online )
  • To die. Historical-critical edition. Edited by Gerhard Hubmann. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter 2012. (Works in historical-critical editions. Ed. By Konstanze Fliedl )

filming

Entry 31 in: Films ( Memento from April 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive )

radio play

Entry 81 in: Radio plays ( Memento from December 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

Secondary literature

  • Arthur Schnitzler. Ed. V. Heinz Ludwig Arnold . text + criticism. Issue 138/139, April 1998, 174 pages, ISBN 3-88377-577-0
  • Jacques Le Rider : Arthur Schnitzler or The Vienna Belle Époque . Translated from the French by Christian Winterhalter. Vienna: Passagen Verlag 2007. 242 pages, ISBN 978-3-85165-767-8
  • Andreas Blödorn: Arthur Schnitzler: "Die" (1894). In: Christoph Juergensen / Wolfgang Lukas / Michael Scheffel (eds.): Schnitzler manual: Life - work - effect . Stuttgart / Weimar: Metzler 2014, pp. 173–176.
  • Burkhard Meyer-Sickendiek : The discovery of brooding as a cognitive form. Arthur Schnitzler's death . In: Ders .: depth. About the fascination of brooding. Munich, Paderborn 2010, p. 240ff.
  • Michaela L. Perlmann: Arthur Schnitzler. Stuttgart 1987. 195 pages. (= Metzler Collection, Vol. 239), ISBN 3-476-10239-4
  • Carl Pietzcker: A nouvelle expérimentale. In: interpretations. Arthur Schnitzler. Dramas and stories. Ed. V. Hee-Ju Kim and Günter Saße. Stuttgart 2007. 270 pages (= Reclams Universal Library No. 17352), ISBN 978-3-15-017532-3 , pp. 31-45
  • Michael Scheffel: Epilogue. In: Arthur Schnitzler: Leutnant Gustl. Stories 1892 - 1907. Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer 1961 (2004 edition). 525 pages, ISBN 3-10-073552-8
  • Peter Sprengel: History of German-Language Literature 1870 - 1900. From the founding of the Empire to the turn of the century. Munich: CH Beck 1998, ISBN 3-406-44104-1
  • Gero von Wilpert : Lexicon of world literature. German authors A - Z. Stuttgart 2004. 698 pages, ISBN 3-520-83704-8 , p. 555, right column

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arthur Schnitzler: Die. Historical-critical edition. Edited by Gerhard Hubmann. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter 2012. (Works in historical-critical editions. Ed. By Konstanze Fliedl), p. 1
  2. ↑ Ibid., P. 6
  3. ↑ Ibid.
  4. ↑ Ibid., P. 1
  5. ↑ Georg Brandes, quoted in n. Jacques Le Rider: Arthur Schnitzler or The Vienna Belle Époque . Translated from the French by Christian Winterhalter. Passagen Verlag Vienna 2007, p. 83
  6. ↑ Michaela L. Perlmann: Arthur Schnitzler. Stuttgart 1987. (= Metzler Collection, Vol. 239), p. 137
  7. ↑ Michael Scheffel: Afterword. In: Arthur Schnitzler: Leutnant Gustl. Stories 1892 - 1907. Ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer 1961 (2004 edition), p. 513
  8. ↑ Peter Sprengel: History of German-Language Literature 1870 - 1900. From the founding of the empire to the turn of the century. Munich: CH Beck 1998, p. 285
  9. ^ Carl Pietzcker: Eine nouvelle expérimentale. In: interpretations. Arthur Schnitzler. Dramas and stories. Ed. V. Hee-Ju Kim and Günter Saße (Germanist) . Stuttgart 2007. (= Reclams Universal Library No. 17352), p. 44