Zweig MS 159

Autographfair copy. Hofmannsthal’s hand shows characteristics of both roman script and Kurrentschrift.

Thirty-eight lines of blank verse in iambic pentameters. It describes man and nature awaking at daybreak after a storm, a vision of Christ and his mother, and a guilty young man returning to his own room after spending the night with a woman.

Begins: ‘Nun liegt und zuckt am fahlen Himmelsrand . . .’

Ends: ‘Nun geht die Stalltür. Und nun ist auch Tag.’

With autograph annotations 'Hofmannsthal' at the top left and 'für die 'Morgan' at the top right (referring to the first publication). There are minor corrections to ‘false starts’ in lines 17, 29, 31.

On f. 2v is an instruction in pencil in another hand, struck through, ‘Bitte in 2 Exemplaren typieren . . .’

There is no reason to doubt that ‘Vor Tag’ was composed on 7 August 1907, as indicated on the Frankfurt manuscript, at Hofmannsthal’s home in Rodaun (today in Vienna's 23rd district). Olga, wife of the dramatist Arthur Schnitzler, quoted the whole poem and described the circumstances in which it was written in her Spiegelbild der Freundschaft (Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, 1962), p. 76. Hofmannsthal, who was currently working on Die Briefe des Zurückgekehrten, took an evening walk with the Schnitzlers, passing a wayside shrine depicting Christ and Mary. This inspired the vision incorporated into the poem, and its inscription was echoed in the words 'O meine Mutter' and 'Ach mein lieber Sohn'.

Eugene Weber in his Euphorion article notes that Hofmannsthal generally only made one draft of his poems, and would produce a fair copy with minimal revision soon afterwards. Zweig MS must therefore have been written in the short space of time between the August draft and the publication on 1 November of the same year. It was too late for inclusion in 1907 Gesammelte Gedichte published by Insel, but it was included in subsequent collections.

Stefan Zweig’s relationship with Hofmannsthal was based on admiration which was not reciprocated. He hoped to emulate the success of the slightly older Viennese Jewish writer and ventured to engage in correspondence with him; letters received by Zweig are preserved in the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem. Hofmannsthal did acknowledge the merits of Zweig’s Balzac essay, and he did make a gesture of friendship in giving him the present manuscript. However he did not regard him as a serious writer, calling him a mere journalist or littérateur, and claiming later not to know of his Novellen. The fact that both published their work through the Insel Verlag may have created professional tensions. In 1906 the young Zweig had shared with others a bursary from the Viennese Bauernfeld Fund. Hofmannsthal disapproved of the arts policy with which the Fund was associated, and was scathing in belittling the recipients of its awards. During the First World War, Hofmannsthal’s support for monarchy and his active official role did not accord with Zweig’s views, but political differences were not the cause of their personal and intellectual distance. Nevertheless Zweig gave the address or ‘Gedächtnisrede’ at Hofmannthal’s funeral in 1929, and he took on his mantle as librettist for Richard Strauss’s opera ‘Die schweigsame Frau’.

Zweig also owned the following autograph manuscripts of Hofmannsthal:

• 'Aus einer Alkestis', acquired in 1912 and now in the Bodmer Foundation, Geneva.
• 'Reiselied', acquired in 1912 and now in the Bodmer Foundation, Geneva.
• ‘Verse zum Gedächtnis des Schauspielers Josef Kainz’, presented by the author in 1910 and now in the Österreichisches Theatermuseum, Vienna.

‘Was die Braut geträumt hat’, acquired in 1930 and now in the Bodmer Foundation, Geneva.