SOURCE: Swales, Martin. “Tragedy and Comedy.” In Arthur Schnitzler: A Critical Study, pp. 181-214. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.

In the following essay, Swales explores elements of tragedy and comedy in Liebelei and Zwischenspiel.

Liebelei is the nearest Schnitzler comes to writing tragedy. Here, he explicitly measures the sexual behaviour of the young man-about-town, of the Anatol figure, against the possibility of total and passionate surrender to love, and judges the young man accordingly. In this play Schnitzler takes issue with many of the moral conventions of his time. In this sense Liebelei recalls Ibsen, although it lacks the resolute social purpose of Ibsen at his most passionately critical. It must, however, not be forgotten that Schnitzler's concerns are somewhat different from those of his great Norwegian predecessor. In a play such as Pillars of the Community, Ibsen attacks the way society is run, the powers of social administration...