Twilight: A Drama in Five Acts (MLA Texts and Translations) - Softcover

Bernstein, Elsa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0873529286 ISBN 13: 9780873529280

Publisher: Modern Language Association of America, 2003

Synopsis

Elsa Bernstein lived at the center of Munich's cultural life from the 1890s into the next century. Her literary salon was frequented by such authors as Rainer Maria Rilke, Theodor Fontane, Henrik Ibsen, and Thomas Mann. Her plays, written under the pseudonym Ernst Rosmer, are noteworthy for their unconventional female figures, uninhibited language, taboo subjects, and realistic detail. Susanne Kord, the editor and translator of Twilight, discusses the reception of Bernstein's worksat first enthusiastic, then increasingly sexistand the theme, in Twilight, of the culturally sanctioned oppression of women.

In this naturalist drama, a woman eye surgeon treats the daughter of a man who is prejudiced against educated women. Her successful treatment wins the father's affection for her, and they fall in love. She is ready to give up medicine for wedded blissher wish is to become "very happily stupidbut finds misery instead.

About this title

About the Author:

Elsa Bernstein(18661949), though of Jewish descent, was a Christian and a member of Germany's educated elite. During the Holocaust, she survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp through her classification as a prominent persona status conferred on her through the intercession of Richard Wagner's daughter-in-law, a friend of Hitler.

Susanne Kord has published on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women playwrights in Germany. She has published poetry in several anthologies and journals, and translated German dramas into English.

Review:

Kord's introduction and the extensive critical apparatus, including notes and bibliography, are comprehensive and relevant to the interests of both the curious casual reader and the scholar who intends to make serious study of Bernstein's life and work. Midwest MLA Journal

This introduction to Elsa Bernstein is excellent. . . . The account given of the reception history of the play is particularly fascinating and thoroughly researched; reception history is a crucial element in understanding this once famous, now far less widely known Jewish woman writer. Sarah Colvin, University of Edinburgh

The translation is accurate, idiomatic, dramatic. A most impressive feat. Steven R. Cerf, Bowdoin College

About this edition

• Publisher: Modern Language Association of America
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0873529286
• ISBN 13: 9780873529280
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 187