Ritchie Robertson

Judith Beniston

Here are eight essays in cultural history on the intimate connection of Roman Catholic devotion -- and its opposite, anticlericalism -- with Austrian culture from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.

Catholicism and Austrian Culture

Robert Vilain

Austrian Studies is an annual journal reflecting sustained interest in the distinctive cultural traditions of the Habsburg Empire and the Austrian Republic. By publishing a wide range of articles in English, together with a selection of book reviews, it aims to make recent research accessible to a broadly based international readership. Literature is considered in relation to psychology, philosophy, political theory, music, theatre, film, and the visual arts. 'Austrian' includes German-language culture of former areas of the Habsburg Empire, such as Prague and the Bukovina, as well as the work of people of Austrian origin living abroad. Austrian interactions with other linguistic and ethnic groups - the Jewish communities of Austria-Hungary, for example - will also be taken into account. theme, and reviews of the most important recent publications in the field of Austrian Studies. Each volume will also include a substantial review article devoted to keeping readers up-to-date with the very latest Austrian literature and with major cultural debates and events.

Austria and France

Hugo von Hofmannsthal had a lifelong fascination with the theatrum mundi topos. Judith Beniston analyses his changing responses to it against an unfamiliar backdrop - the revival of Catholic drama which, from the 1890s onwards, accompanied the rise of Austria's Christian Social party. The solipsism of `Jung Wien' and the conservative modernism of the Salzburg Festival are juxtaposed with the career of Richard von Kralik (1852-1934), the key figure in Austria's Catholic literary culture from 1890 to 1934. This study offers close readings of Das kleine Welttheater and Das Salzburger grosse Welttheater, and explores the ramifications of the fascination with the notion of Welttheater which Hofmannsthal and Kralik shared. In juxtaposing elite and popular culture, Beniston sheds new light on a neglected aspect of Austrian cultural history, on the selectivity of Hofmannsthal's approach towards Austria's Baroque tradition, and on the difficulties he faced in his attempt to assimilate his own work into it.

Judith Beniston

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