Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 28, 1993 TAG: 9303280222
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by CHRISTOPHER LEE PHILLIPS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ Carl Dolmetsch, emeritus professor of English at the College of William and Mary, has charted the course of a seldom explored period in the life of Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, in "Our Famous Guest: Mark Twain in Vienna." The result is a travelogue of literary scholarship with numerous snippets of typically humorous Twain trivia.
Mark Twain spent the 1890s traveling, lecturing and playing the crusty storyteller before adoring audiences. He stayed nearly two years in Vienna, ostensibly to chaperon his daughter Clara's studies at the piano of Theodor Leschetizky. Dolmetsch argues quite convincingly that Mark Twain's Viennese days provided him with a period of creative reinvigoration.
Though he was known throughout the world, Mark Twain hardly could have anticipated the brouhaha that greeted him upon his arrival in September 1897. He soon became involved in the fervent cultural odyssey that was fin de siecle in Vienna. Renewing his interest in the theater, he wrote two plays in collaboration with Siegmund Schlesinger. He attended political activities among diplomats and social events with the aristocracy. The presence of Mark Twain in the city became a modern media event for the Viennese press, and Twain suffered some anti-Semitic remarks at the editorial hands of several Viennese journals.
Before his departure, Twain was given an audience with Emperor Franz Josef, an experience he considered to be a "great distinction" and a "special kindness," though not one of his more eloquent moments with the German language.
The great humorist and raconteur was in his element, albeit in a foreign country where citizens shared mixed opinions and a curious interest in the American literary phenomenon, Mark Twain.
Christopher Lee Phillips is a Washington, D.C., writer.
by CNB