Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 'Lafcadio Hearn': a new translation

Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s short essay ‘Lafcadio Hearn’ (1904) provides a brief but powerful insight into the resonance of Hearn’s Japanese writing for European decadent and modernist writing in the early twentieth century. Writers and artists turning to Japan since the mid nineteenth century were building on a history of transnational engagements between East Asia and Central Europe, as well as long-established artistic and intellectual practices of European Orientalism. Studies of japonisme have demonstrated the specific place that Japan held in German and Austrian imaginations by 1900, especially in Hofmannsthal’s Vienna. As European knowledge of Japanese art and culture developed over the nineteenth century, Hearn’s work fuelled fascination with both the ‘old Japan’ and contemporary Japanese life. Hofmannsthal’s essay shows this tension in his response to Hearn’s work: his elegiac tone in describing ancient Japanese spiritual practices is combined with stark images of the ongoing Russo-Japanese War, his condescending praise of Japanese intellectuals placed alongside weary dissatisfaction with the ‘burden’ of Western culture.