Modern Austrian Literature 1997. 30/1. [antikvár]

Dorrit Cohn There once was a time when Kafka was regarded as incomparable — spontaneously generated and inimitable. That time is no longer. He is now the heir of many and has many heirs — the words "Kafka and" figure in countless titles. Looking merely at those that point backwards, they affiliate him most prominently with E.T. A. Hoffmann, Kleist, Poe, Dickens, Flaubert, Dostoevsky. Not, however, with the name featured in my own title, though Hofmannsthal (Vienna, 1874-1929) was far closer to Kafka (Prague, 1883-1924) in Space and time than the writers just named.1 This may be due to the fact that my title designates a relationship that involves neither of the two genres — drama and lyric poetiy — that Hofmannsthal is most famous for, but fictional narrative, a relatively minor part of his oeuvre and much of which remained unfinished. This relationship has not passed entirely unnoticed. It has most notably intrigued Walter Benjamin and Hermann Broch, two of the most authorita-tive thinkers of our Century, who were, as it happens, among the happy few who recognized Kafka's importance early on. Their rather cryptic comments will be my starting point. 1 Benjamin's comment is found in a very late (1940) letter addressed to Adorno, in which he reacts to the latter's essay on the coriespondence be-tween Stefan George and Hofmannsthal. After expressing his admiration for this essay — "das Beste was Sie jemals geschrieben haben" —, Benjamin adds the following qualification: "Es bleibt eine Seite an Hofmannsthal unberührt, die mir am Herzen liegt." He now illustrates this "side" of Hofmanns-thal by referring to two moments from his writings, one from the so-called "Chandosbrief," the other from the late drama Der Turm. What leads to the comparison with Kafka is Benjamin's sense that Julian — one of the main characters of the drama Der Turm — is a self-portrait of its author, for the latter, like the former, commits an essential act of betrayal: "Julian verrät den Prinzen: Hofmannsthal hat sich von der Aufgabe abgekehrt, die im Chandosbrief auftaucht. Seine 'Sprachlosigkeit' war eine Art von Strafe. Die