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`Bacchen des Euripides zu erneuern': The Pentheus Project of Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Author(s) -
Ward Philip Marshall
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1034/j.1600-0730.2000.d01-11.x
Subject(s) - drama , literature , philosophy , tragedy (event) , history , art
Hofmannsthal's Nachlaß contains a series of notes for an adaptation or rewriting of Euripides' Bacchae , notes written in three phases (1892–3, 1904, 1905–18). Working from the new standard Hofmannsthal edition, this article seeks to make sense of these fragments by re‐arranging each group into a coherent sequence, based on Hofmannsthal's outline scenario and on the structure of the model, Euripides' play. The result is a skeletal text of a two‐act drama, radically different from previously published versions, which may aid future scholarship in the appreciation of this hitherto confusing material. The article sets three targets: to assess what attracted Hofmannsthal to the subject, what he attempted to make of it, and why he did not succeed. It begins with an introduction to the main characteristics of Hofmannsthal's Hellenism and its historical‐critical context (Nietzsche, Rohde, etc.) Euripides' Bacchae is briefly interpreted in terms that provide a basis for assessing Hofmannsthal's project. There then follows a summary of each newly constituted scene at the three stages of interest, drawing attention to principal themes and points of congruence with or divergence from Euripides' drama. After sections on the influence of Nietzsche and Pater, the article concludes with reflections on why Hofmannsthal was unable to complete the project.