Work

Wrestling with Marionettes: Entangled Embodiment and Posthuman Agency in Schnitzler's 'Zum großen Wurstel'

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: Halfway through Arthur Schnitzler's burlesque comedy 'Zum großen Wurstel', a wrestler, wearing a panther skin and medals, emerges from the audience.1His entrance onto the stage of the Marionettentheater [marionette theatre] interrupts the ongoing play.He wrestles with the Duke, a marionette and male hero figure.In a short fight the well-known fairground type, who proudly exhibits his abnormal physique, is defeated by a puppet seemingly controlled by strings.The Duke casually throws the wrestler back into the now-agitated audience.2The scene is disturbing 1 The title of Schnitzler's play is difficult to translate into English because the name of the puppet theatre is based on the 'Wurstel' figure, a colloquial Austrian version of the German Hanswurst or a kind of Mr Punch.

Source: Austrian Studies

DOI: 10.1353/aus.2019.0021

Author: Annja Neumann

Institution: University of Cambridge

Language: English

Topic: German Literature and Culture Studies

Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council

Award: Digital Critical Edition of Middle-Period Works by Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931)