About the work
Literature is a one-act comedy by Arthur Schnitzler, written in 1901 as part of the cycle "Lebendige Stunden" ("Living Hours") alongside three other one-act plays. It premiered on 4 January 1902 at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, and the cycle was published the same year by S. Fischer.
Plot
The writer Gilbert calls on his former lover Margarethe, who is about to marry Baron Clemens. In conversation it emerges that both turned their past relationship into a novel each, even copying their old love letters word for word into the text. Forced to choose between a literary career and marriage, Margarethe has her nearly finished novel pulped and chooses Clemens instead.
Cultural significance
The play takes aim at writers who mine their private love affairs for literary material; according to literary scholar Peter Sprengel, Schnitzler was also alluding to actual incidents in Munich artistic circles of his time.