HOFMANNSTHAL, HUGO VON Aus trian poet, was born in Vienna on Feb. 1, 1874. He took the de gree of Ph.D. at the University of Vienna and when still a school boy originated the romantic school in Austria by his lyric and semi-dramatic poetry, which aroused much controversy at the time. He was not uninfluenced by Stefan Georg's example and Hermann Bahr's criticism, but the melody and colour of his lan guage, and the art with which he gave poetic expression to com plicated spiritual moods were new. He had genius for appre ciating bygone cultures and a sensitive understanding of the beau tiful in art and in nature.
Hofmannsthal is little indebted to contemporary realism, but his almost too susceptible personality is tinged by innumerable literary influences from the Attic tragedians down to Victor Hugo, Swinburne, Browning and D'Annunzio. This is especially noticeable in his dramatic poems, not a few of which are simply old plays of Sophocles, of Calderon, Moliere and Otway cloaked in modern form and spirit. Nevertheless he has an abiding place in the history of literature as founder of the whole German neo romantic drama. Some of his dramas became known outside Austria and Germany through the music of his friend Richard Strauss, others through Reinhardt's Festival plays at Salzburg. His collected poems appeared in 1911, his collected prose began to appear in 1907. In later years he turned his attention to society comedy. The most characteristic of his original dramas are: Gestern (1891) ; Der Tod des Tizian (1892) ; Der Tor and der Tod (1893) ; Der Abenteurer and die Scngerin (1899) ; Oedipus and die Sphinx (1906) ; Cristinas Heimkehr (ipso); and his libretti: Elektra (1903) ; Der Rosenkavalier (191I) ; Ariadne auf Naxos (1912); Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919) ; and Der Un bestechliche (1923). He died on July 15, 1929.
See monograph by Sulger-Gebing ('9o5) and pamphlet by Borchardt (1905).