The Lord Chandos Letter

A Letter (Ein Brief), usually known as The Letter of Lord Chandos or the Chandos Letter, is a prose work written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal in 1902. It is in the form of a letter dated August 1603 from a writer named Lord Philip Chandos (a fictional character) to Francis Bacon, and describes Chandos's crisis of language.

The letter begins with a summary of the great literary feats that Chandos once achieved. Then Chandos writes of his current mental state. He has reached a crisis point in his career concerning language and its ability to adequately express the human experience. Chandos has abandoned all future written projects, which he once proposed with exuberance, because of his inability to express himself in a meaningful fashion. Chandos describes the development of his crisis in stages. First came the loss of the ability to conduct academic discourse on matters of morality or philosophy. Next, he lost the function to make everyday conversation regarding opinions or judgments. Lastly he turned to the classics, works by Cicero and Seneca, in an attempt to cure his literary ailment but could make no sense of them and his condition continued to decline. Chandos describes his state at present as, “…[having] lost completely the ability to think or speak of anything coherently.” Chandos experiences extreme moments of transcendence, where epiphanies on life and the spirit overwhelm him. However, these moments are brief in nature and once they have passed Chandos is incapable of expressing the insight he uncovered moments before. These epiphanies are the highlight of Chandos’ existence, and outside of them his life is stagnant and barren. Chandos often feels he is on the brink of recovery as thoughts begin to form in his mind. But like the epiphanies they are soon lost in his inability to write. This failure of language has robbed him of self-confidence and creativity. The end result is Chandos as a broken man mourning his lost abilities. Chandos ultimately says he will write no more in any known language.

The Lord Chandos Letter stands in stark contrast to Hofmannsthal's early works and poetry. He was a poet who had a command over language in his early poetry centered on the “inner self” that had characterized his time as a member of the elite literary circle Young Vienna. Instead, in his writing The Lord Chandos Letter, Hofmannsthal abandons poetry and his work on aesthetics much to the disappointment of his readers. The Lord Chandos Letter was written during the fin de siècle, a clash between the old social order and a development of new thought and means of expression. Central figures of the movement such as Hofmannsthal, Sigmund Freud, Ernst Mach and Ludwig Wittgenstein witnessed the transformation of society but were dismayed by their inability to effect change in a modern society that was “hopelessly pluralistic; lacking in cohesion or direction”. In his letter, Hofmannsthal mentions a sickness of the mind which emerged from the inability of language to sufficiently express oneself amidst social and political turmoil. The preoccupation with a crisis of language is most famously recognized in his Lord Chandos Letter.

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