Arthur Schnitzler and twentieth century criticism

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"Schnitzler, one of the most prolific Austrian writers of the twentieth century, ruthlessly dissected his society's erotic posturing and phobias about sex and death. This book examines Schnitzler's reception up to 2000, beginning with the journalistic reception of the early plays. Before being suspended by a decade of Nazism, criticism in the 1920s and 1930s emphasized Schnitzler's determinism and decadence. Not until the early sixties was humanist scholarship able to challenge this verdict by pointing out Schnitzler's ethical indictment of impressionism in the late novellas. During the same period, Schnitzler, whom Freud considered his literary "Doppelganger," was often subjected to Freudian psychoanalytical criticism; but by the eighties, scholarship was citing his own thoroughgoing objections to such categories. Since the seventies, Schnitzler's remonstrance toward the Austrian establishment has been examined by social historians and feminist critics alike, and the recently completed ten-volume edition of Schnitzler's diary has met with vibrant interest."--BOOK JACKET