To revert to Schnitzler the dramatist, what are his chief claims, his chief excellences, his chief defects? It seems to us that the essence of his merit lies in the fact that, speaking broadly, he handles problems neither as ends in themselves, as do the more advanced of our own dramatists, nor yet, like Sudermann, as mere pegs on which to hang violently theatrical stage effects. Some problem may constitute the centre of most of his plays; yet, with a few exceptions, this problem is not presented too nakedly or without sufficient relief. Each problem is bathed in an artistic atmosphere, and each character in the picture limned with the most subtle psychology. It is true that, as has already been pointed out, many of the acts in his early longer dramas exhibit too strong a tendency to form self-independent pictures; yet it is this defect which forms the chief charm of his one-acters. It is true that nearly all his characters are Bohemian—artists, flâneurs, actresses, journalists, doctors, painters—yet each author creates, as of right, the population of his own individual world; and is it not rather a claim to glory to have attained such heights of dramatic celebrity without having written more than one single play specifically devoted to fashionable life? It is true that the ethics of these plays, with their chronic and inevitable intrigues, may strike the English mind as somewhat unusual; yet Schnitzler enjoys the reputation of being the most brilliant and accurate portrayer of contemporary Viennese life. It is, moreover, in the nature of all problem plays that they should be pieces of special pleading, where the other side is allowed just so much of a hearing as will not permit of its convincing. After all, from the standpoint of dramatic art, that which counts is not the ethics, but the presentation of the problem.
Yet, with all his subtlety and all his problems, he is never heavy. Vienna stands intellectually nearer to Paris than to Berlin, so that the Teutonic introspection and sentimentalism are touched with a Gallic sprightliness and a Gallic grace. No dramatist has written tragedy with so light a hand, or comedy with so ironically pathetic a smile, as has Arthur Schnitzler.
[1] "Der Freiwild" (sic); correct title is "Freiwild"—transcriber's note (M.D.)
[2] "Rohring" is "Rönning" in the original play—transcriber's note (M.D.)
[ÉMILE VERHAEREN]
"Mais les plus exaltés se dirent dans leur cœur,
'Partons quand même avec notre âme inassouvie
Puisque la force et que la vie
Sont au delà des vérités et des erreurs.'"
"Vivre c'est prendre et donner avec liesse.
Toute la vie est dans l'essor."