Schnitzler's century
Subtitle: the making of the middle-class culture, 1815-1914
By: Peter Gay.
Publisher: Norton
Published: 2002
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 314
Subjects: Schnitzler, Arthur, 1862-1931.; Civilization, Modern -- 19th century.; Civilization, Modern -- 20th century.; Middle classes -- History -- 19th century.; Nineteenth century.; Europe -- Social life and customs -- 19th century.; Europe -- Intellectual life -- 19th century.; Europe -- Civilization -- 19 century.
Description: "We have always believed that Queen Victoria defined the mores of the nineteenth century. Yet Peter Gay, one of our most eminent cultural historians, asserts in this radical work that it is the sexually emboldened Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), the most influential Austrian writer of his time, who provides a better symbol for the age.".

"In a set of nine closely linked chapters, each focusing on major topics of bourgeois life, Gay synthesizes three decades of far-ranging research, presenting a lucid reinterpretation of the nineteenth-century middle class - its passions, politics, religion, and anxieties - that we can only think we know well.

Extending his examination back to 1815, at the close of the age of Napoleon, Gay chronicles a hundred-year period that witnessed not only the emergence of the middle class but also the birth of a culture that remains vital today. Throughout Schnitzler's Century, he does justice to the complexity of the era, showing that there was superstition as well as science, cruelty as well as humanity, anxiety as well as Eros.

But digging deep into bourgeois life all the way from Philadelphia to Moscow, London to Rome, he has recognized a general Victorian style through the Western world, however colored each country was by characteristic local habits.".

"Schnitzler's Century is not revision for its own sake, but for the sake of the truth about the past. With the daring Viennese playwright Arthur Schnitzler as his companion, Gay provides startling perspectives on once-familiar subjects. Schnitzler's Century provides astonishing insights into an age that made us largely what we are today."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [315]-316) and index.

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