Arthur Schnitzler: Der einsame Weg. Hist.-krit. Ausgabe

The loneliness of ageing bachelors one of them selfishly tries to obtain the love of his illegitimate son, who was raised by his equally unaware foster father , is the starting theme for the five-act play Der einsame Weg. In painstaking work from summer 1900 to autumn 1903, Schnitzler developed a play about the dark sides of both supposedly unrestricted artistic existences and bourgeois life, which only seems to be available at the price of deceit and self-delusion. Received rather reluctantly at its premiere in 1904, the drama has been able to assert itself on the stage to this day. Due to Schnitzlers barely legible handwriting and, foremost, the intricate situation of his literary estate, a reliable, philologically sound edition of his texts, remained a desideratum for a long time. The historical-critical edition of Arthur Schnitzler`s early works, edited by Konstanze Fliedl and published by De Gruyter, aims to close this gap. Der einsame Weg is the fifteenth volume of this edition, which the FWF has been funding since 2010 now for the fourth time (P 22195, P 27138, P 30513, P 34081). Like several previous volumes, it will be published in print as well as open access. The edition of Der einsame Weg aims to trace the highly complex genesis of the play, characterised by new approaches, revisions and and variations. To this end, the entire preserved material is edited for the first time; more than 400 handwritten pages are reproduced as facsimiles in their original size and supplied with a diplomatic transcription. The volume also offers a print text based on the first edition with a display of textual variants. In addition, the writing process of the play is reconstructed and the history of its première and printing is analysed using further sources. The often-suggested common roots of Der einsame Weg and the comedy Professor Bernhardi, which was published eight years later, are also examined. Additionally, the edition contains a commentary, focusing on cultural- historical, linguistic, topographical and biographical explanations.