Arthur Schnitzler: Four Major Plays - Softcover

Schnitzler, Arthur; Mueller, Carl R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1575251809 ISBN 13: 9781575251806

Publisher: Smith & Kraus Pub Inc, 1999

Synopsis

Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), one of the seminal forces in world drama, was also a novelist and practicing physician. His four dramatic works in this volume (La Ronde, Anatol, The Green Cockatoo,and Flirtation) are among the most celebrated plays of the 20th century. Much like his contemporary Sigmund Freud, Schnitzler's work is inextricable from the social and intellectual milieu, which accompanied the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This was the age of the "Viennese Secessionists," exemplified by composers such as Berg, Webern, and Schoenberg, painters Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka, the foundations of modern architecture, and Zionism. To add to the ferment, Freud introduced his theories of sexuality. It was from within this maelstrom that Schnitzler wrote his plays. He wrote with charm and grace and with great compassion for the frailty of humankind. These plays are regularly performed throughout the world and are acclaimed as masterpieces of modern theater. Mueller's translations of plays include works by Brecht, Buchner, Wedekind, Hauptmann, Strindberg, and Sophocles.

About this title

From the Publisher

The four plays in this volume, in distinguished new translations by Carl R. Mueller, represent the cream of Schnitzler's dramatic oeuvre. They are regularly performed throughout the world and are acclaimed as masterpieces of modern theater.

About the Author

Carl R. Mueller has since 1967 been professor in the Department of Theater at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he ahs taught theater history, criticism, dramatic literature, and playwriting, as well as having directed. He was educated at Northwestern University, where he received a B.S. in English. After work in graduate English at the University of California, Berkeley, he received his M.A. in playwriting at UCLA, where he also completed his Ph.D. in theater history and criticism. In addition, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin in 1960-1961. A translator for more than forty years, he has translated and published works by Büchner, Brecht, Wedekind, Hauptmann, Hofmannsthal, and Hebbel, to name a few. His published translation of von Horváth's Tales from the Vienna Woods was given its London West End premiere in July 1999. For Smith and Kraus, he has translated volumes of plays by Schnitzler, Strindberg, Pirandello, Kleist, and Wedekind, as well as Goethe's Faust, Parts I and II. In addition to translating the complete plays of Euripides and Aeschylus for Smith and Kraus, he has also co-translated the plays of Sophokles. His translations have been performed in every English-speaking country and have appeared on BBC-TV.

About this edition

• Publisher: Smith & Kraus Pub Inc
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1575251809
• ISBN 13: 9781575251806
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 207