Biography
Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), born in Vienna into a Jewish intellectual family, was a defining voice of fin-de-siècle Vienna and among the most psychologically acute playwrights and prose writers of his era. A practising physician before turning to literature full-time, Schnitzler corresponded with Sigmund Freud, who called him his Doppelgänger. His plays include Anatol (1893), Liebelei (1895), the scandalous Reigen/La Ronde (1900, but not performed until 1920), and Professor Bernhardi (1912). His prose includes the novellas Leutnant Gustl, Fräulein Else, and Traumnovelle—the last adapted by Stanley Kubrick in 1999 as Eyes Wide Shut. Schnitzler's work concentrated on sexuality, social hypocrisy, and antisemitism in Habsburg Austria. He died in Vienna in 1931, two years before the Nazi seizure of power that would make his work untenable in German-speaking theatre.
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