Erinnerung – Geschichtlichkeit – Epiphanie

Hofmannsthal’s narrative works from 1907 frequently reference one another – sometimes in mutual reprise, sometimes in ambivalent contradiction. This study examines how, in a pivotal year of his literary and ideological development, the author explores narrative-fictional concepts in order to negotiate the function and reliability of cultural memory, historiography and epiphany as three modern promises of redemption. In doing so, Hofmannsthal often subtly contradicts his literary characters, using the logic of fiction to weigh up opposing arguments and experimenting with interpretations of European modernity that are constantly questioning themselves.