Escape from life. The Legend of the 672nd Night

Viennese Modernism of the turn of the 19th century is a literary period which, with all its diversity of
genres, forms and trends, provides ample space for the oneiric. This article directs a single work by Hugo
von Hofmannsthal. One of the main motives of his oeuvre was dream, conceived as a state of withdrawal
from reality, an aesthetic representation of the self, a conscious departure from the literal and the concrete.
The protagonist of Hofmannsthal’s short story shapes his life into a beautiful fairy tale, but reality
faces him with the dark side of the world and he pays a high price for this encounter.