Austrian poet, dramatist, essayist, and librettist, who became internationally famous for his collaboration with the German composer Richard Strauss. Hofmannsthal entered the literary scene very young, at the age of 16. After World War I Hofmannsthal founded with Max Reinhardt the Salzburg Festival, which have given regularly performances of his plays.

REISELIED
Wasser stürzt, uns zu verschlingen,
Rollt der Fels, uns zu erschlagen,
Kommen schon auf starken Schwingen
Vögel her, uns fortzutragen.

Aber unten liegt ein Land,
Früchte spiegelnd ohne Ende
In den alterslosen Seen.

Marmorstirn und Brunnenrand
Steigt aus blumigem Gelände,
Und die leichten Winde wehn.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal was born in Vienna into an old Spanish-Jewish family. His father, Dr. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, was a bank director, whose fortunes had dwindled during the depression of 1873. However, he had been awarded the noble 'von', and had converted to Catholicism. Hofmannsthal's father noted his son's literary talents early. At the Café Griensteidl he introduced the young Hugo to the group of young bohemians around the newspaper editor Hermann Bahr and the dramatist and novelist Arthur Schnitzler. There Hofmannsthal started his aesthetic education. In the circle of young poets, known as Jung Wien, Hofmannsthal and Stefan Zweig were the most distinguished stars.

His first poems and essays Hofmannsthal published at the age of 16 under the pseudonym Loris. In 1892 Hofmannsthal became a student of law at the University of Vienna, but he abandoned law in favor of Romance philology, and obtained his doctorate in 1898. After this he devoted himself entirely to writing.

Between 1891 and 1899 Hofmannstahl wrote a number of short verse and plays, among them Gestern (1891), Der Tor und der Tod (1893), which focused on an egocentric aesthete, Das kleine Welttheater (1897), and Die Hochzeit der Sobeide (1899). At the age of seventeen Hofmannsthal met the German poet Stefan George, from whom he adopted the idea of 'art-for-art's sake' for a period. During their fifteen-year friendship many of Hofmannsthal's poems appeared in George's journal Blätter für die Kunst. However, in the question of involvement, Hofmannstahl parted with the elite circle of George. In Gestern the hero realizes that reality doesn't circle around his ego. Hofmansthal saw that while art can be the most important thing in the life of a creative person, it doesn't have such meaning for the people who are unable to create: "Our present is all void and dreariness, / If consecration comes not from without." Eventually in Das Märchen der 672. Nacht (1905) Hofmannsthal expressed his fear that the world may deceive the aesthete.

In his poetry Hofmannsthal used three major metaphors for life: the dream, the game, the drama. He viewed the poet as a synthesis of man the dreamer, man the actor, and man the gameplayer. Among Hofmannsthal's life-is-theater dramas is The Salzburg Great Theater of the World, which borrowed its central metaphor from Calderón's The Great Theater of the World. Hofmannsthal's tragedy Der Trum (1925) was based on Calderón's Life Is a Dream. Hofmansthal wrote two versions of the play, in which the hero, Sigismund reacts differently to chaos and corruption of power. Der Abenteurer und die Sängerin (1899) and Christinas Heimreise (1910) were based on episodes in Casanova's Mémoires; he is called Baron Weidenstamm and Florindo in the respective plays.

Hofmannsthal's most famous essay was Ein Brief (1902), a fictive letter of Philip, Lord Chandos, the younger son of the Earl of Bath, to Lord Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the English statesman, historian, and philosopher. Chandos confesses a major philosophical crisis. "I found it impossible to express an opinion on the affairs at Court, the events in Parliament, or whatever you wish." He has lost completely the ability to understand the meaning of the words and to think or to speak of anything coherently. Subsequently all social and cultural constructs are called into doubt. "The nature of our epoch," he wrote, "is multiplicity and indeterminacy." What other generations believed to be firm, he considered das Gleitende (the slipping, the sliding). Hoffmannstahl's approach to Chandos's crisis is Wittgensteinian: the limits of language are the limits of thought.

During his journey to France in 1900, Hofmannsthal met among others Auguste Rodin and the poet Maeterlinck. The next year he married Gertrud Schlesinger, a banker's daughter. The couple settled in a country house at Rodaun, near Vienna, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

At the age of twenty-six Hofmannsthal abandoned poetry, feeling that the theatre offered a better change to influence on political developments. The growth of anti-Semitism worried him, and several of his plays and librettos were about political leadership – the duty of rulers is to preserve arts which control irrationality. Because some of his earlier plays had received lukewarm reviews, Hoffmannsthal wanted to stage his works more successfully. In 1903 Hoffmannsthal formed friendship with Max Reinhardt in Berlin. Fascinated by spectacular effects, Reinhardt and Hofmannsthal turned plays into spectacles, which fused poetry, arts, drama, and music in a total work, as in Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk.

For the Salzburg Festival Plays Hofmannsthal reworked the morality play Jedermann (1911, Everyman), which dealt with faith and salvation. The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius wrote music for the play in 1916, combining expressionistic and archaic motifs. During two decades, Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss cooperated in six operas, in spite of their contrasting temperaments and different backgrounds, Hofmannstahl's aestheticism and Strauss's down-to-earth attitude. Max Reinhardt was often in charge of the staging.

Hofmannsthal's first libretto for Strauss was based on Sophocles's Elektra (1906). He had started the work already in 1901, but the opera did not premiere until on 25 January 1909. Hoffmannsthal's "demonic, ecstatic" image of the ancient Greece inspired Strauss to "set mania to music", use over one hundred players, and create his famous "blood chord", "E-major and D-major mingled in pain". Elektra also reflected elements that were familiar from the writings of Freud – father fixation, recurring hallucinations, and disturbed sexuality. Hofmannsthal himself considered Strauss's Salome (1906), which was inspired by Oscar Wilde's poem, the "most beautiful and distinctive work". Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose), which premiered in Dresden in January 1911, became highly popular. It has been played perhaps more often than any other twentieth-century German opera. Hofmannsthal's last major opera project was Arabella, performed in 1933.

From its founding the central piece of the annual Salzburg Festival has been Hofmannsthal's Everyman, based on a famous medieval mystery play about the meaning of life and death. In the story, God sends Death as an administrator of justice to Everyman's soul, poisoned by egoism. When Death appears amid a feast, Everyman is left alone, his friends, Mammon, Fellowship, and others do not follow with him. Only the Record of His Deeds, a cripple, remains loyal and helped by Faith, Everyman finds his way back to his Christian youth.

During World War I Hofmannsthal wrote several political essays. He served briefly in the Austrian army and then in the Austrian War Ministry. After the collapse of the monarchy, he became an advocate of the preservation and restoration of German and Austrian culture, hoping that art could save Europe from political turmoil. In the 1920s Hofmannsthal edited collections of writings by earlier German-language authors. Hofmannstahl's stand was also manifested in how he described the Salzburg Festival in 1921: "The introduction of musical/theatrical festivals at Salzburg means breathing new life into that which was once alive, giving encouragement to the original life-impetus of this Bavarian-Austrian race, and helping its people to find their way back to a true spiritual expression."

Hofmannsthal died of a heart attack on July 15, 1929 – two days after his eldest son Franz had committed suicide. His collected works appeared between 1945 and 1959, after the Nazi ban on him was lifted. Hofmannsthal's hopes, which he had expressed in numerous writings, that "a true German and absolute man," "a prophet", would appear, came true in a way he never could foretell.

For further reading: Hugo von Hofmansthal by H. Hammelmann (1957); Hofmannsthal, ed.  F. Norman (1963); Hofmansthal's Festival Dramas by B. Coughlin (1964); Hofmannsthal and the French Symbolist Tradition by S.P. Sondrup (1976); Hugo von Hofmannsthal by L.A. Bangerter (1977); Hugo von Hofmannsthal and His Time: The European Imagination, 1860-1920 by Hermann Broch (1984); Hugo von Hofmannsthal: The Theater of Consciousness by B. Bennett (1988); The Challenge of Belatedness by J. Wilson (1991); Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal, and the Austrian Theater by W.E. Yeats (1992); Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Poets and the Language of Life by A. Del Caro (1993); Hugo von Hofmannsthal by J. LeRider (1997); A Companion to the Works of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, ed.  Thomas A. Kovach (2002) - See also: Arthur Schnitzler, Rainer Maria Rilke

Selected works:

• Gestern, 1891
• Das Märchen der 672. Nacht, 1895
  - The Tale of the 672nd Night (tr. in German Literary Tales, edited by Frank G. Ryder and Robert M. Browning, 1983; J.M.Q. Davies, in Selected Tales, 2007)
• Der Abenteurer und die Sängerin, 1899 (play, prod. 1898, rev. version, 1909) [The Adventurer and the Singer]
• Die Frau im Fenster, 1899 (play, prod. 1898, in Theater in Versen, 1899)
• Die Hochzeit der Sobeide, 1899 (play, as Sobeide, Abenteurer, prod. 1899)
  - The Marriage of Sobeide (tr. B.Q. Morgan, in The German Classics, 1914) / The Marriage of Zobeide (tr. Christopher Middleton, in Selected Writings, 1961)
• Theater in Versen, 1899
• Der Kaiser und die Hexe, 1900 (play, prod. 1900)
  - The Emperor and the Witch (tr. Christopher Middleton, in Selected Writings, 1961)
• Der Tor und der Tod, 1900 (play, prod. 1908)
  - Death and the Fool (tr. M. Batt, 1913; J. Heard, Jr., in The German Classics, 1914; E. Walter, 1914) / The Fool and Death: A Metrical Translation of Hugo V. Hofmannsthal's Poetic Drama (tr. H.E. Mierow, 1930)
• Studie über die Entwicklung des Dichters Victor Hugo, 1901 (as Versuch über Victor Hugo, 1925)
• Der Tod des Tizian. Ein dramatisches Fragment, 1901 (play)
  - The Death of Titian (tr. John Heard, Jr., in The German Classics, 1914)
• Ein Brief, 1902 (Brief des Lord Chandos an Francis Bacon)
  - The Lord Chandos Letter (translated by Russell Stockman, 1986) / The Lord Chandos Letter and Other Writings (tr. Joel Rotenberg, 2005) /  Letter from Lord Chandos (tr.  J.M.Q. Davies, in Selected Tales, 2007)
• Der Schüler, 1903
• Ausgewählte Gedichte, 1903
• Das kleine Welttheater, oder, Die Glücklichen, 1903 (play)
  - The Little Theatre of the World (tr. Walter R. Eberlein, 1945; Michael Hamburger, in Selected Writings, 1961)
• Elektra 1904 (play, prod. 1903, rev. version, music by Strauss, prod. 1909)
  - Electra: A Tragedy in One Act (translated by Arthur Symons, 1908; Alfred Schwarz, in Selected Writings, 1964)
  - Elektra (suom.)
• Unterhaltungen über literarische Gegenstände, 1904
• Victor Hugo, 1904
• Das Märchen der 672. Nacht und andere Erzählungen, 1905 (contains Ein Brief)
• Prinz Eugen der edle Ritter, 1905
• Das gerettete Venedig, 1905 (play, prod. 1905, based on Thomas Otways's Venice Preserv'd)
  - Venice Preserved (tr. Elizabeth Walter, 1915)
• Ödipus und die Sphinx, 1906 (play, prod. 1905)
  - Oidipus and the Sphinx (tr. 1968)
• Kleine Drames, 1906-07 (2 vols., plays)
• Die gesammelten Gedichte , 1907
• Die Prosaischen Schriften Gesammelt, 1907 (2 vols.)
• Der weiße Fächer, 1907  (play, prod. 1897)
  - The White Fan (tr. 1909)
• Vorspiele, 1908 (plays)
• Reitergeschichte, 1908
  - Cavalry Patrol (tr. 1939)
• Die Frau im Fenster: ein Gedicht, 1909
  - Madonna Dianora (tr. Harriet Betty Boas, 1916)
• Hesperus; ein Jahrbuch, 1909 (with Rudolf Borchardt and Rudolf Alexander Schröder)
• Elektra, 1909 (libretto, opera composed by Richard Strauss)
• König Oedipus, 1910 (play, prod. 1910, from the play by Sophocles)
• Cristinas Heimreise, 1910 (play, prod. 1910)
  - Christina's Journey Home (tr. R.T. House, 1917)
• Alkestis, 1911 (play, prod. 1924, from the play by Euripides, music by Egon Wellesz)
• Jedermann. Das Spiel vom Sterben des reichen Mannes, 1911 (play, prod. 1911)
  - The Play of Everyman (tr. G. Sterling, 1917) / The Salzburg Everyman (tr. M.E. Tafler, 1930)
  - Jokamies (suom.)
• Der Rosenkavalier, 1911 (prod. 1911, opera composed by Richard Strauss)
  - The Rose-Bearer (tr. Alfred Kalisch, 1912) / The Cavalier of the Rose (tr. Christopher Holme, in Selected Writings, 1963)
  - Ruusuritari: kolminäytöksinen musiikkikomedia (suom. Leena Vallinsaari, 2002)
• Die Gedichte und kleinen Dramen, 1911
• Grete Wiesenthal in Amor und Psyche und Das fremde Mädchen, 1911
• Ariadne auf Naxos 1912 (play, prod. 1912, rev. version, 1916, prod. 1916, opera composed by Richard Strauss)
  - Ariadne on Naxos (tr. Alfred Kalisch, 1912)
• Deutsche Erzähler, 1912 (4 vols.)
• Die Wege und die Begegnungen, 1913
• Josephs Legende, 1914 (ballet scenario, with Harry Graf Kessler, prod. 1914, music by Stauss)
  - The Legend of Joseph (tr. 1914)
• Die Frau ohne Schatten, 1916 (play, prod. 1919, opera composed by Richard Strauss)
  - The Woman Without a Shadow (translated by Jean Hollander, 1993)
• Österreichischer Almanach auf das Jahr 1916, 1916 (editor)
• Die Lästigen, 1916 (play, prod. 1916, from a play by Molière)
• The Lyrical Poems of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 1918 (ed. C. Stork)
• Der Bürger als Edelmann, 1918 (play, from a drama by Molière)
• Rodauner Nachträge, 1918 (3 vols.)
• Die Frau ohne Schatten, 1919 (play, prod. 1919, opera composed by Richard Strauss)
• Die Frau ohne Schatten, 1919 (fiction)
• Lucidor, 1919 (play)
• Reitergeschichte, 1920
• Dame Kobold, 1920 (from a play by Calderón)
• Reden und Aufsätze, 1921
• Festspiele in Salzburg, 1921
• Der Schwierige, 1921 (play, prod. 1921)
  - The Difficult Man (tr. Willa Muir, in Selected Writings, 1963)
• Das Salzburger große Welttheater, 1922 (play, prod. 1922, from a play by Calderón)
  - The Salzburg Great Theatre of the World (tr. Vernon Watkins, in Selected Writings, 1964)
• Buch der Freunde, 1922 (ed. Ernst Zinn, 1965)
• Gedichte, 1922
• Deutsches Lesebuch, 1922-1923 (2 vols.)
• Die grüne Flöte, 1923 (ballet scenario)
• Prima Ballerina, 1923 (ballet scenario)
• Florindo, 1923 (play)
• Der Unbestechliche, 1923 (play, prod. 1923) [The Incorruptible]
• Deutsche Epigramme, 1923
• Gesammelte Werke, 1924 (6 vols., rev. ed.. 3 vols., 1934)
• Augenblicke in Griechenland, 1924
  - Moments in Greece (tr. 1952)
• Der Turm, 1925 (play, from Calderón's Life is a Dream, revised version, prod. 1928)
  - The Tower (tr. M. Hamburger, in Selected Writings, 1964; Alfred Schwarz, in Three Plays, 1966)
• Achilles auf Skyros, 1925
• Die Ruinen von Athen, 1925 (play)
• Früheste Prosastücke, 1926
• Schillers Selbstcharakteristik. Aus seinen Schriften, 1926
• Grillparzers politisches Vermächtnis, 1926
• Richard Strauss Briefwechsel mit Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 1926
  - Correspondence Between Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal 1907-1918 (tr. Paul England, 1927)
• Das Schrifttum als geistiger Raum der Nation, 1927
• Drei Erzählungen, 1927
• Wert und Ehre deutscher Sprache, 1927
• Der Tod des Tizian, 1928 (written in 1892)
  - The Death of Titian (tr. John Heard, jr.)
• Die ägyptische Helena, 1928 (play, prod. 1928, opera composed by Richard Strauss
  - Helen in Egypt (tr. Alfred Kalisch, 1928)
• Ad me ipsum, 1930
• Loris: Die Prosa des jungen Hoffmansthals, 1930
• Berührung der Sphären, 1931
• Wege und Begegnungen, 1931
• Andreas; oder, Die Vereinigten, 1932
  - Andreas; or, The United (tr. Marie D. Hottinger, 1936)
• Arabella, 1933 (play, prod. 1933, opera composed by Richard Strauss)
  - Arabella (tr. J. Gutman, 1955; Nora Wydenbruck and Christopher Middleton, in Selected Writings, 1964)
• Das Bergweg von Falun, 1933 (play, prod. 1899, from a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann)
  - The Mine at Falun (tr. Michael Hamburger, in Selected Writings, 1961)
• Semiramis: Die beiden Götter, 1933 (play)
• Nachlese der Gedichte, 1934
• Dramatische Entwürfe aus dem Nachlaß, 1935 (ed. by Heinrich Zimmer)
• Briefe 1880-1909, 1935-37 (2 vols.)
• Das Leben ein Traum, 1937
• Briefwechsel zwischen George und Hofmannsthal, 1938
• Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben, 1945-59 (15 vols., ed.  Herbert Steiner)
• Erlebnis des Marschalls von Bassompierre: und andere Erzählungen, 1950
• Richard Strauss und Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Briefwechsel, 1952 (ed. by Franz and Alice Stauss, rev. ed. by Willi Schuh, 1954)
  - Correspondence between Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannstahal (tr. Hans Hammelmann and Ewald Osers, 1961)
• Danae, oder, Die Vernunftheirat, 1952
• Selected Writings: Prose, Plays and Libretti, Poems and Verse Plays, 1952-63 (3 vols., edited by Mary Hottinger, Tania and James Stern, and Michael Hamburger)
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Eberhard von Bodenhausen, Briefe der Freundschaft, 1953 (edited by Dora von Bodenhausen)
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Rudolf Borchardt: Briefwechsel, 1954 (ed. Marie Luise Borchardt and Herbert Steiner)
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Carl J. Burckhardt Briefwechsel, 1956 (ed. Carl J. Burckhardt and Claudia Mertz-Rychner)
• Ausgewählte Werke, 1957 
• Silvia im "Stern", 1959 (ed. Martin Stern)
• Poems and Verse Plays, 1961 (edited by Michael Hamburger; with a pref. by T. S. Eliot)
• Stanzas in Terza, 1961
• Selected Plays and Libretti, 1963 (3 vols., edited by Michael Hamburger)
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Arthur Schnitzler: Briefwechsel, 1964 (ed.  Theresa Nickl and Heinrich Schnitzler)
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal / Helene von Nostiz: Briefwechsel, 1965 (ed. Oswalt von Nostitz)
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Edgar Karg von Bebenburg: Briefwechsel, 1966 (ed. Mary E. Gilbert)
• Three Plays, 1966 (tr. Alfred Schwarz)
• Briefe an Marie Herzfeld, 1967
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal-Leopold von Andrian: Briefwechsel, 1968
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal / Willy Haas, Briefwechsel, 1968 (edited by Rolf Italiaander)
• Four Stories, 1968
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal--Harry Graf Kessler: Briefwechsel 1898-1929, 1968
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Joseph Redlich. Briefwechsel, 1971
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Richard Beer-Hofmann. Briefwechsel, 1972 (edited by Eugene Weber)
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Ottonie Gräfin Degenfeld : Briefwechsel, 1974 (ed. Marie Therese Miller-Degenfeld)
  - The Poet and the Countess: Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Correspondence With Countess Ottonie Degenfeld (translated by W. Eric Barcel, 2000)
• Komödien, 1974
• Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Ausgabe, 1975- (ed. by  Rudolf Hirsch, et al.)  
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Rainer Maria Rilke - Briefwechsel 1899-1925, 1978 (ed. Rudolf Hirsch and Ingeborg Schnack)
• Gesammelte Werke, 1979 (10 vols., ed. by Bernd Schoeller)
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Paul Zifferer: Briefwechsel, 1983 (edited by Hilde Burger)
• Poesie und Leben: Erfahrungen mit Wörtern und Menschen, 1987 (selected by Günther Busch)
• Tagebücher 1918-1923 und Briefe des Vaters an die Tochter 1903-1929 / Christiane von Hofmannsthal, 1991 (edited by Maya Rauch and Gerhard Schuster)
• Briefwechsel 1907-1926 / Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Rudolf Pannwitz, 1993 (edited by Gerhard Schuster)
• Briefwechsel mit Julius Meier-Graefe 1905-1929 / Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 1998 (edited by Ursula Renner)
• Briefwechsel mit Clemens von Franckenstein 1894-1928 / Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 1998 (edited by Ulrike Landfester)
• Briefwechsel mit Alfred Walter Heymel 1900-1914 / Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 1998 (edited by Werner Volke)
• Briefwechsel: mit Briefen Hofmannsthals an Paul Graf Thun-Hohenstein / Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Christiane Gräfin Thun-Salm, 1999 (edited by Renate Moering)
• Briefwechsel Hofmannsthal / Pannwitz 1907 - 1926, 1993 (ed. by Gerhard Schuster)
• Werke in zehn Bänden, 2000 (ed. by Lorenz Jäger)
• Briefwechsel mit Marie von Gomperz, 1892-1916 / Hugo von Hofmannsthal ; mit Briefen von Nelly von Gomperz, 2001 (edited by  Ulrike Tanzer)
• Brief-Chronik: Regest-Ausgabe, 2003 (3 vols., edited by Martin E. Schmid)
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal--Walther Brecht Briefwechsel; mit Briefen Hugo von Hofmannsthals an Erika Brecht, 2005 (edited by Christoph König and David Oels)
• Briefe und Dokumente: samt ausgewählten Briefen Kassners an Gerty und Christiane von Hofmannsthal, 2005 (edited by Klaus E. Bohnenkamp)
• Selected Tales: The Tale of the 672nd Night, A Cavalry Tale, Marshal de Bassompierre's Adventure, Letter from Lord Chandos, and Other Narratives, 2007 (translated, with an introduction and notes, by J.M.Q. Davies)
• The Whole Difference: Selected Writings of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 2008 (edited by J.D. McClatchy)
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the Austrian Idea: Selected Essays and Addresses, 1906-1927, 2011 (translated and edited by David S. Luft)