The Biedermeier and Beyond

This volume brings together fifteen essays by scholars which were first presented at a conference held in Oxford in September 1997 to mark the bicentenary of Schubert's birth. This collection of essays examines a variety of aspects of cultural and social life in Austria in the first half of the nineteenth century but also explores the perpetuating of myths and stereotypes derived from those years and the ways in which the Biedermeier period continued to influence later generations, not least in their repeated attempts to create an image of «the good old days» based on the age of Schubert before the chaos of the 1848 revolution and the construction of the Ringstraße. Major figures from literature and culture are well represented (Grillparzer, Nestroy, Stifter, Bauernfeld) but an important focus of the volume is on lesser known writers who were responsible for the creation of the Biedermeier myth: Frankl, Bartsch, Lux and others. A further group of essays is concerned with general topics such as Austrian identity, the existence of a specifically Austrian strand of philosophy, and changing attitudes towards nature.