Editing Hugo von Hofmannsthal (section)

===Thought===
On 18 October 1902 Hofmannsthal published a fictive letter in the Berlin Daily, ''Der Tag'' (''The Day'') titled simply [[The Lord Chandos Letter|"Ein Brief" ("A Letter")]]. It was purportedly written in 1603 by Philip, Lord Chandos, to [[Francis Bacon]]. In this letter Chandos says that he has stopped writing because he has "lost completely the ability to think or to speak of anything coherently"; he has given up on the possibility of language to describe the world. This letter reflects the growing distrust of and dissatisfaction with language that so characterizes the Modern era, and Chandos's dissolving personality is not only individual but societal.<ref name="Gottfried2007">Gottfried, Paul. "Hugo von Hoffmannsthal and the Interwar European Right." ''Modern Age'' 49.4 (2007): pp. 508+ [http://www.mmisi.org/MA/49_04/gottfried.pdf online].</ref>

Growing up the son of a wealthy merchant who was well connected with the major artists of the time, Hofmannsthal was raised in what [[Carl Emil Schorske|Carl Schorske]] refers to as "the temple of art". This perfect setting for aesthetic isolation allowed Hofmannsthal the unique perspective of the privileged artist, but also allowed him to see that art had become a flattened documenting of humanity, which took our instincts and desires and framed them for viewing without acquiring any of the living, passionate elements. Because of this realization, Hofmannsthal's idea of the role of the artist began to take shape as someone who created works that would inspire or inflame the instinct, rather than merely preserving it in a creative form. He also began to think that the artist should not be someone isolated and left to his art, but rather a man of the world, immersed in both politics and art.<ref name="Burks2017">Burks, Marlo (translator, introduction). [http://www.iudicium.de/katalog/86205-506.htm ''Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Writings on Art / Schriften zur Kunst''.] German and English. German texts in English translation, Volume II. Hans-Günther Schwarz and Norman R. Diffey (editors). Iudicium, 2017. Translation of and introduction to Hofmannsthal's writings on visual art.</ref>

Hofmannsthal saw in English culture the ideal setting for the artist. This was because the English simultaneously admired [[Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson|Admiral Nelson]], a war hero, and [[John Milton]], a poet, while still maintaining a solid national identity. "In [Hofmannsthal's] view, the division between artist (writer) and man of action (politician, explorer, soldier) does not exist in England. Britain provides her subjects with a common base of energy which functions as equilibrium, a force lacking in fragmented Germany" (Weiss). This singular and yet pragmatic identity must have appealed to Hofmannsthal to a certain degree due to the large scale fragmentation of Austria at the time, which was witnessing the birth of radical nationalism and anti-Semitism, a nation in which the progressive artist and the progressive politician were growing more different and hostile to each other by the day.<ref name="Broch1984">[[Hermann Broch|Broch, Hermann]] (Author), Steinberg, Michael P. (Translator). ''Hugo von Hofmannsthal and His Time: The European Imagination, 1860&ndash;1920'', University Of Chicago Press, 1984, {{ISBN|978-0-226-07516-7}}.</ref><ref name="Weiss1973">Weiss, Winifred. ''Comparative Literature''. Vol&nbsp;25, no.&nbsp;1. (Winter, 1973) pp.&nbsp;60&ndash;67.</ref>