Something about Egon Friedell

He is one of those authors you can never read enough of, and to whom you always return. He is hardly read widely these days, and there isn't much to read about him now. Only Manfred Papst, over the years, has taken the opportunity in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung to expertly review Friedell's republished works.

Things were different in the past. Friedell's cultural histories of the modern era, Greece, and antiquity, for example, reached a wide readership upon their publication. In them, Friedell describes the evolution of history with astounding encyclopedic knowledge; he establishes connections, weighs the evidence, and also delivers his own judgments. While one doesn't always have to agree with his views, Friedell remains personal and original in his thinking, dialectical in his arguments—in short, intellectually challenging—whereas later cultural histories, in a pedantic display of erudition, still fall far short of achieving deeper insights. Friedell gets to the heart of even the most complex phenomena with just a few words. For example, at the beginning of his reflections on Shakespeare in cultural history, we read that he was the master of open form, a thought that, once read, one never forgets, for Shakespeare's complex dramatic structure could not be captured more aptly in such a concise manner.

The term "cultural history" originates with Friedell. Today, unfortunately, it has become worn out; there are cultural histories of the suitcase, the companion dog, perfume, pathological collecting—hoarders—of female innocence, even of arousal (with the subtitle:) In Praise of the Whip. The term has been devalued, sadly relegated to the realm of cultural decline.

It's unimaginable what more we could have learned from the polymath Egon Friedell had the barbarians not driven him to his death in 1938. The precise circumstances of his death are described elsewhere at length; we will not recount them here. Yet Friedell's work remains immortal. Rejoice, poet; weep, human being!

Fortunately, several of Friedell's books are currently available again, all of his cultural histories, including those of the modern era, in various editions, the most attractive being the one published by Beck, his loyal publisher even during his lifetime. And Friedell should only be read in beautiful editions, precisely because one always returns to him. Furthermore, a number of his posthumous works are also available again: "The Return of the Time Machine," "Is the Earth Inhabited?", "The Abolition of Genius," and, gratifyingly, quite a bit more.

Friedell's works have also been translated into seven languages. However, the situation is less favorable today. In English, there is "The Return of the Time Machine" and a cultural history of the modern age, the latter also available in French. Currently, there seems to be nothing available in Italian, which is a pity; but Italy itself has so many intellectual heroes that this omission is easily forgiven.