Biography Essay

Arthur Schnitzler was born on 15 May 1862 in Vienna, the first child of Johann Schnitzler, a laryngologist, and Louise Markbreiter Schnitzler, a physician's daughter. Johann Schnitzler, who wrote for the Wiener Medizinische Presse and in 1887 founded the Internationale Klinische Rundschau, was also one of the twelve founders of the Allgemeine Wiener Poliklinik (General Viennese Polyclinic), which he headed until his death in 1893. Johann Schnitzler did not have much impact on his son's literary work, which he did not fully understand and of which he occasionally disapproved. The family was Jewish, but nor orthodox, and Jewishness became for Arthur Schnitzler only a question of race, not one of religious commitment. His lengthy novel Der Weg ins Freie (1908; translated as The Road to the Open, 1932) contains many discussions on Jewish problems; a comment made by Heinrich Bermann, a character in this work, seems to reflect Schnitzler's view: "Was ist...