Hofmannsthals Lustspielfragment „Silvia im ›Stern‹“

Although Hofmannsthal’s comedies have received a great deal of scholarly interest, his first comedy, the fragmentary „Silvia im ›Stern‹“ (1907), has been overlooked. Written at a time of profound epistemological crises, it is an experimental reaction connected to the aesthetic search for expression in a world suddenly seen differently. This study aims to explore the author’s dramatization of the problem of knowledge and perception from both a content and media perspective. Silvia is an experiment in which the dramatic constituents collapse and are played off against each other. Furthermore it is the moment that the author creates new genre poetics and demonstrates his concept of „Lebenskunst“ in a mystical appropriation of the comedy genre.