Hermann Bahr
Born and raised in Linz, Bahr studied in Vienna, Graz, Czernowitz and Berlin, devoting special attention to philosophy, political economy, philology and law. During a prolonged stay in Paris, he discovered his interest in literature and art. He began working as an art critic, first in Berlin, then in Vienna: In 1890 he became associate editor of Berliner Freie Bühne (“Berlin Free Stage”), and later became associate editor and critic of the Deutsche Zeitung (“German Newspaper”). In 1894 he began publication of Die Zeit (“The Times”), and was also editor of the Neue Wiener Tagblatt (“New Vienna Daily Flyer”) and the Oesterreichische Volkszeitung (“Austrian Popular Newspaper”).
From 1906-1907, he worked as a director with Max Reinhardt at the German Theater (German: Deutsches Theater) in Berlin, and starting in 1918 he was a Dramaturg with the Vienna Burgtheater.
Spokesman for the literary group Young Vienna, Bahr was an active member of the Austrian avant-garde, producing both criticism and Impressionist plays. Bahr's association with the coffeehouse literati made him one of the main targets of Karl Kraus's newspaper Die Fackel (The Torch) after Kraus's falling out with the group.
Bahr was the first critic to apply the label modernism to literary works, and was an early observer of the Expressionism movement. His theoretical papers were important in the definition of new literary categories. His 40 plays and around 10 novels never reached the quality of his theoretical work. He died, aged 70, in Munich.
(via Wikipedia)
“Man screams from the depths of his soul; the whole era becomes a single, piercing shriek. Art also screams, into the deep darkness, screams for help, screams for the spirit. This is Expressionism.”
“Words are not in the power of men; men are in the power of words. Every time we open our mouths, a thousand dead men speak through us.”
“... what we say or do is unimportant; it is merely semblance, beyond which our real life lies concealed... We know this better than we can prove, but in order to prove it we have to express it, and on the path to speech the essential somehow gets lost.”
“So he explored, explored within himself, scanning himself with a lamp, as if it were not himself at all but some strange monster that he had been commanded to guard.”
“As long as he deceived himself about the truth, he could blame fortune and have confidence in the future. Now the clouds of madness were closing round his mind.”
“It comforted him because it could not be called suffering if it was a sign of Art.”
“Bondage And Service - that was what they all demanded and from everyone. This craving to find themselves in another, to subjugate and appropriate foreign territory, to create a new field for their own will in a second body, foreign flesh for their own soul; this greedy, consuming hunger devoured every other desire, and they called it friendship!”