Philip Payne & Graham Bartram 
A Companion to the Works of Robert Musil 

A fresh and extensive look at the works of the great Austrian novelist in the context of the German and Austrian culture of his time.


A panel of authors, critics, and academics convened by the Literaturhaus in Munich in 1999 voted Robert Musil’s
The Man without Qualities the most important German novel of the 20th century. Their collective judgment restson strong foundations: on the work’s encyclopedic compass, embracing intellectual, social, political, and cultural concerns embodied in themes of striking originality; on its probing of key issues of Austrian and German life fromthe first four decades of the twentieth century; on the brilliance of its language, unsurpassed by any other 20th-century author writing in German. While this Companion gives
The Man without Qualities the central focus it deserves, it also contributes to a deeper understanding of Musil’s other significant works; in harnessing a team of established scholars from North America and Europe to the task of providing an assessment of Musil’s work, it setsnew standards in scope and originality. The analyses are embedded in an appreciation of the intellectual contexts of Musil’s writing, yielding fresh insights into Musil’s artistic accomplishment and into his place in the Austrianand German cultural traditions of the 20th century.


Contributors: Philip Payne, Klaus Amann, Galin Tihanov, Matthias Luserke-Jaqui, Silvia Bonacchi, Christian Rogowski, Peter Henninger, Walter Fanta, Karl Corino, Genese Grill, Burton Pike, Rüdiger Görner


Philip Payne is emeritus Professor of German Studies at Lancaster University, UK; Graham Bartram is retired as Senior Lecturer in German Studies at Lancaster University, UK; and Galin Tihanov is the George Steiner Professor of Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University of London, UK.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: The Symbiosis of Robert Musil’s Life and Works – Philip Payne

Robert Musil: Literature and Politics – Klaus Amann

Robert Musil’s Diaries: Medium between Life and Literature – Philip Payne

Robert Musil in the Garden of Conservatism – Galin Tihanov

Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß: Adolescent Sexuality, the Authoritarian Mindset, and the Limits of Language – Matthias Luserke-Jaqui

Musil’s ‚Die Vollendung der Liebe‘: Experience Analyzed and Reconstituted – Sylvia Bonacchi

‚Shifts in Emphasis‘: Robert Musil’s
Die Schwärmer and Twentieth-Century Drama – Christian Rogowski

Robert Musil’s Novellas in the Collection
Drei Frauen – Peter Henninger

The Genesis of
Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften – Walter Fanta

The Contribution of Biographical Research to the Understanding of Characters and Themes of
Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften – Karl Corino

Figuring Thought in Culture: ‚Utopia‘ in
Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften from the Perspective of
Kulturwissenschaft – Matthias Luserke-Jaqui

The ‚Other‘ Musil: Robert Musil and Mysticism – Genese Grill

Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften: Unfinished or without End? – Burton Pike

The ‚Finale‘ of
Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften: Competing Editions and the ‚Telos‘ of the Narrative – Walter Fanta

‚Reception without Qualities‘: Musil’s Impact on Austrian and German Writers after 1945 – Rudiger Gorner

Select Bibliography

Robert Musil’s Life: A Chronology – Karl Corino

Notes on the Contributors

Index

Über den Autor

GENESE GRILL (Ph D CUNY Graduate Center) is an independent scholar and artist. She has written extensively on Musil and has published translations of several of his works.