Since World War II Hugo von Hofmannsthal has regained his place as a classic of modern European literature. The translations collected here-Death and the Fool, Electra, and The Tower represent different periods and interests in his career as a dramatist. Yet, as the critical introduction on Hofmannsthal's tragic theater indicates, all three plays, written in different theatrical idioms, reveal a unified and developing conception of man's estate in the modern world.

Hofmannsthal rejected the current fashions of the modern stage but was nonetheless a keen observer of his time....