About the work
Das Wort ("The Word") is an unfinished five-act tragicomedy that Arthur Schnitzler worked on for years from around 1904 without completing it. Kurt Bergel edited the text from Schnitzler's papers for S. Fischer in 1966; the stage premiere followed in 1969 at the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna.
Plot
The young painter Willi Langer loves Lisa van Zack but is discouraged by the writer Anastasius Treuenhof, who argues that a spoken word of love can never be proven true. When Willi realises that Lisa's own declarations were themselves only words without substance, he takes his own life.
Cultural significance
The play is one of Schnitzler's most fundamental, unfinished reckonings with the unreliability of language in matters of love – a theme that runs through his entire late work. It did not reach the stage until 1969, 65 years after he began writing it and 38 years after his death.