Der Traum einer neuen Ordnung für Europa. Allegorische Orte und kulturelle Räume in der ersten Fassung von Hofmannsthals Turm

In his main work of the Twenties, the baroque tragedy Der Turm, Hugo von Hofmannsthal broaches the topic of a very 'singular' place: a tower as the jail of an innocent prince in the Kingdom of Poland in the 17th century. Other than his literary source, La vida es sueño by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and like the title says, Hofmannsthal's Turm centres on this 'singular' place as well as on Prince Sigismund's destiny as an allegory of the political issues of the 20th century. Hofmannsthal's answers to these issues in his late literary and essaystic writings focus on a cultural utopia based on the concept of a plural Europe – a concept which refers to the past of the Habsburg Monarchy but at the same time is projected to an ideal future. This article concentrates on the tension between the singular place mentioned in the title of Hofmannsthal's Turm and the plural idea of Europe which constitutes the theoretical background of this drama, with regard to Hofmannsthal's cultural-political projects in his late work from the 1st World War onwards.