‘RECLUSION IS NO MORE POSSIBLE WHILE OUR WORLD STANDS IN FLAMES’: EMERGING POLITICAL SUBTEXTS IN THE GENESIS OF STEFAN ZWEIG'S UNGEDULD DES HERZENS

Abstract

Ungeduld des Herzens (1939) is the only novel published during Stefan Zweig's lifetime. Written between 1936 and 1938, the book's genesis coincided with key events in Austrian and European history, including the mass displacement of Jews from Germany and the ‘Anschluss’ of Austria with Nazi-Germany. A closer inspection of the changes from the first to the tenth and final manuscript version of the novel indicates that Zweig started out with the intention to write a psychological novella about a tragic love story. As work on the text progressed, however, Zweig added characters and plot elements which appear to comment on the political developments of the time. In this article, I will argue that the revisions Zweig made while he was re-writing the novel add an important political subtext that aligns with the ethical objectives of his later exile works.