ABSTRACT
The name of Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) today is hardly known outside a small circle of specialists. Few people even among those otherwise familiar with German literature would be able to mention a work of his. Such failing is not limited to Hofmannsthal, but applies to Vienna literary modernism as a whole:
the central paradox of the Vienna of these years [is] that whilst the city produced one of the most lively and important movements in modern art, music, and literature, it did not come up with a single major work of art.
