The Lord Chandos letter and other writings
By: Hugo von Hofmannsthal ; selected and translated from the German by Joel Rotenberg ; introduction by John Banville.
Contributors: Rotenberg, Joel.
Series: New York Review Books classics
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2005
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 128
Subjects: Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, -- 1874-1929 -- Translations into English.
Genres: Translations into English.
Work titles: Selections.
Description: "Hugo von Hofmannsthal made his mark as a poet, as a playwright, and as the librettist for Richard Strauss's greatest operas, but he was no less accomplished as a writer of short, strangely evocative prose works. The atmospheric stories and sketches collected here - fin de siecle fairy tales from the Vienna of Klimt and Freud, a number of them never before translated into English propel the reader into a shadowy world of uncanny fates and secret desires. An aristocrat from Paris in the plague years shares a single night of passion with an unknown woman, a cavalry sergeant meets his double on the battlefield, an orphaned man withdraws from the world with his four servants, each of whom has a mysterious power over his destiny."

"The most influential of all of Hofmannsthal's writings is the title story, a fictional letter to the English philosopher Francis Bacon in which Lord Chandos explains why he is no longer able to write. The "Letter" not only symbolized Hofmannsthal's own turn away from poetry, it captured the psychological crisis of faith and language which was to define the twentieth century."--Jacket.
Table of contents: title: Cavalry story; title: Dream death; title: Tale of the 672nd night; title: The golden apple; title: The rose and the desk; title: Tale of the veiled woman; title: The village in the mountains; title: Reflection; title: Twilight and storm after dark; title: An incident in the life of Marshall de Bassompierre; title: Military story; title: Tide creature: mussel poem; title: Tale of two couples; title: A letter.