Ödön von Horváth: Ein Sklavenball / Pompej

The farce Ein Sklavenball mit Gesang und Tanz [A Slave Ball with song and dance] and the comedy that was developed out of it Pompeji [Pompei] (both 1937) are the last two dramas completed by Ödön von Horvth. Set in ancient Pompei shortly before its desctruction, both plays treat in their own different way of the struggle between slaves and masters, using a love story between the slave Toxilus and the hetaera Lemniselenis, inspiration for which Horvth drew above all from the comedy Persa by the Roman poet T. M. Plautus. Pompeji in particular has a special place in the authors oeuvre as part of his Komödie des Menschen (human comedy), an unfinished cycle of plays that was to be a dramatic reflexion on human history informed by the authors experience of the ruptures of fascism and exile. Although Horvths contemporaries and early commentators considered Pompeji to be his most mature work, it was not until recently that theatre critics and literary historians began to share this opinion. Both Ein Sklavenball and Pompeji are among the least researched and least performed plays of Horvths later period. This neglect stands in stark contrast to the immense wealth of source material available on the genesis of both works. The materials to be found are among the most comprehensive and detailed in the authors whole archive, and reveal an extremely complex composition process. Horvth shows himself to be an eminently modern author in his writing methods. Rather than producing new texts with each version of a work, he revises existing material, cutting and arranging anew. In this way, extensive text montages are created, whose form allows a minute reconstruction of the ways in which the finished text was composed. The Wiener Ausgabe (Vienna Edition) of Ödön von Horvths works makes this context and these processes visible for the first time and enables the reader to follow them in detail. In this respect, it responds to a need that has long been felt and often articulated in research on Ödön von Horvth for a historical edition produced using the most up-to-date critical practices. In addition, it also provides valuable research material for the growing number of contemporary researchers in German Studies who are interested in aspects of textual genesis and the act of writing itself. As has been the convention with all the volumes of the Vienna Edition already published, the present volume is divided into three sections. A lengthy foreword provides detailed information on the archive resources available and the works genesis as well as its contemporary and retrospective reception. The main section of the volume contains the text of the two dramas, including a transcription of all the available source materials for the works, subdivided into conceptions (Konzeptionen) of the genetic development from the very first drafts to the final versions in chronological order. Two different procedures have been used for this section. Versions of the text that allow for linear reading are presented as linear text and provided with critical apparatus. This documents all the changes made by the author to the material presented as well as all subsequent editorial interventions. In cases where versions of the text do not allow for linear reading, the material is presented in facsimile and a diplomatic transcription is provided to make it easier for readers to orient themselves. The final section Kommentar (commentary), consists of a chronological register of all the versions of the texts. The order given to the drafts and stages of composition during their genesis is discussed in individual commentaries. This section also includes simulation diagrams to illustrate the ways in which Horvth put together his extensive text montages. The volume concludes with an appendix that explains the editorial principles and abbreviations used, as well as giving a full bibliography of all the literature referenced. In addition, this edition of Ein Sklavenball / Pompeji puts especial emphasis on the intertextual traces left by Horvths reading of the comedies of Plautus. Passages taken from Ludwig Gurlitts contemporary translation (1920/22), sometimes quoted verbatim, are listed in a separate register and marked individually in both the text of the plays and in the commentary section.

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