Resisting “Bad Taste”: Sentimentality, “Jewishness,” and Modernity in Arthur Schnitzler's Der Weg ins Freie

Ever since the critic Josef Korner called Arthur Schnitzler's Der Weg ins Freie (1908) a "verfehltes Werk," this pronouncement has come to haunt the reception of this novel (218). Even for those who have since then attempted to steer away from this view, Korner's verdict has nevertheless frequently served as a point of departure.1 He was, after all, not only one of the first to thoroughly examine Schnitzler's literary output as a whole when he published Arthur Schnitzlers Gestalten und Probleme in 1921, but also one of the few whose work resisted the anti-Semitic slant that was characteristic of post-World War I criticism in Germany and Austria.2 Given its significant and lingering impact on subsequent Schnitzler scholarship, Korner's criticism invites a second reading and serves as a discursive foil for the present essay. According to Korner, the failure of the work-or, to be more in tune with his dubbing of Der Weg ins Freie as Schnitzler's "liebstes Kind," its miscarriage-can be traced to two roots: structural incoherence and sentimentality. Structurally, Korner argues, the novel is composed of two unrelated, irreconcilable halves. One half revolves around the love story that takes place in 1898 between Georg von Wergenthin, a young aristocrat and aspiring composer, and Anna Rosner, a bourgeois Viennese musician, while the other half consists of a series of long conversations among Jewish characters about art, politics, and in particular, the Jewish question. The only common denominator of the two parts is, according to Korner, the character of Georg, a gentile who befriends several Jewish individuals and unwittingly steps into their heated discussions and verbal crossfire. In Korner's words, the novel is "eine unorganische Verknupfung einer Liebesgeschichte mit heterogenen politischen Debatten" (218). Other critics voiced the same objection to this work when it first appeared: in one letter to his friend Schnitzler, for instance, Georg Brandes writes, "Aber haben Sie nicht zwei Bucher geschrieben?"3 The second reason for the work's failure-sentimentality-is more complex and not wholly unrelated to the structural weakness Korner criticizes. It is also often overlooked in studies which have tried to address Korner's indictment or present a corrective criticism of Schnitzler. Korner divides the aspects of sentimentality in the novel into three categories: characterization, language, and the relationship between writer and work, with the last aspect serving to reinforce the other two. Of Schnitzlerian characters, Korner writes: "kalte Ironie und weiche Sentimentalitat wechseln planlos in ihrem Gemute" (221). In this context, Korner uses sentimentality to describe a state of excessive yet uncommitted emotional activity, which, coupled with "weich," suggests an intense sensitivity to external stimuli. In another instance, he paints Schnitzler's language as being "elegant, vornehm, soigniert, geistreich und ein wenig sentimental-wie seine jungen Lebemanner" (222). This passage underscores the lack of gravity in the emotional state already described in the first through the evocation of the "Lebemann." A recurring character type throughout Schnitzler's oeuvre, of which Georg is an example, this man of leisure lacks political conviction and social awareness. He is dilettantish in his interests and perfunctory in his pursuits. Moreover, he wallows in the atmosphere evoked by his surroundings, and conjures up real or imagined scenarios in order to create a setting for mood and for sensations which he purposely yet perversely construes to be feelings. Schnitzler's sentimental language, when juxtaposed with the "Lebemann," carries the implication that it strikes a false or contrived emotional note. The emotional content that this language tries to convey lacks any tangible substance. Similar to Schnitzler's "man about town," it is devoid of gravity and conviction, even as it strives to achieve a semblance of this conviction. What results is an accumulation of effects, shimmering sensations of something that is purportedly of emotional value, though the attachment to a referent has already been severed or never existed. …