The Discreet Community. Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Der Schwierige
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Jakob Norberg
In his comedy Der Schwierige, Hugo von Hofmannsthal imagines a community without chauvinism. The play's main protagonist Count Hans Karl Bühl claims that it is indecent to speak, and even to have experiences, and proposes an attitude of humility that would in effect entail the individual's self-effacement. However, this attack on individuality as a form of insolence does not pave the way for an affirmation of any greater social or mystical whole, since such formations would run the risk of reproducing arrogance at a higher level. Once one has relinquished all claims to superiority as an individual, one cannot re-emerge as a secure member of a harmoniously unified and stable collective. The community to which the individual should surrender himself to shed his arrogance exists in a genuine manner only in the moment when all of its members abandon any presumptions about the love, admiration, and collaborative capacities of others. If its members would speak triumphantly about their connection, this community would cease to be. To sustain its mode of togetherness, its participants must remain separate and silent, discrete and discreet.
Articles in the same Issue
- “Memory is the Primary Instrument, the Inexhaustible Nutrient Source”. Remediations of Literary Romanticism in Sally Mann's Family Photographs
- Facing the Void. Primal Scenes in Maurice Blanchot and Hélène Cixous
- Stirb und Werde in Goethes Proserpina
- Therapeutic Tragedy. Walter Hasenclever's Antigone and the Need to Bury the War Dead
- „Auf eine Lampe“ von Eduard Mörike. Autonomität und Heterogenität der „klassischen“ Form
- K. as ‘Confessional Hero’. A Foucauldian Reading of Kafka's Der Prozeß
- The Discreet Community. Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Der Schwierige
- Shakespeare and Leibniz: Julius Caesar and the Baroque
- Furchtbare Symmetrien. Romantische Verwandtschaften im Werk der Dichter-Maler Hermann Hesse und William Blake
- Three “Leaping” Poems from East and West: Li Po, Lorca, and Yoshitada
- Lyrik als Verdichtung und Transparenz. Zur Rezeption von Yves Bonnefoy und Michel Deguy in Deutschland
- Between Exoticism and Silence. A Comparison of First Generation Migrant Writing in Germany and the Netherlands
- One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. A Chink in McMurphy's Armor
- Rezensionen
- Liste der Mitarbeiter
Articles in the same Issue
- “Memory is the Primary Instrument, the Inexhaustible Nutrient Source”. Remediations of Literary Romanticism in Sally Mann's Family Photographs
- Facing the Void. Primal Scenes in Maurice Blanchot and Hélène Cixous
- Stirb und Werde in Goethes Proserpina
- Therapeutic Tragedy. Walter Hasenclever's Antigone and the Need to Bury the War Dead
- „Auf eine Lampe“ von Eduard Mörike. Autonomität und Heterogenität der „klassischen“ Form
- K. as ‘Confessional Hero’. A Foucauldian Reading of Kafka's Der Prozeß
- The Discreet Community. Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Der Schwierige
- Shakespeare and Leibniz: Julius Caesar and the Baroque
- Furchtbare Symmetrien. Romantische Verwandtschaften im Werk der Dichter-Maler Hermann Hesse und William Blake
- Three “Leaping” Poems from East and West: Li Po, Lorca, and Yoshitada
- Lyrik als Verdichtung und Transparenz. Zur Rezeption von Yves Bonnefoy und Michel Deguy in Deutschland
- Between Exoticism and Silence. A Comparison of First Generation Migrant Writing in Germany and the Netherlands
- One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. A Chink in McMurphy's Armor
- Rezensionen
- Liste der Mitarbeiter
