Hermann Broch

Hermann Broch
Hermann Broch
Born	November 1, 1886; Vienna,Austria-Hungary
Died	May 30, 1951(aged 64); New Haven, Connecticut
Nationality	Austrian
Literary movement	Modernism

Hermann Broch(German:[bʁɔx];1 November 1886 – 30 May 1951) was anAustrian writer,best known for two major works ofmodernistfiction:The Sleepwalkers(Die Schlafwandler,1930–32) andThe Death of Virgil(Der Tod des Vergil,1945).^[1]^[2]

Life

Broch was born inVienna,Austria-Hungary,to a prosperousJewishfamily and worked for some time in his family's factory, though he maintained his literary interests privately. As the oldest son, he was expected to take over his father’s textile factory inTeesdorf;therefore, he attended a technical college for textile manufacture and a spinning and weaving college.

In 1909 he converted toRoman Catholicismand married Franziska von Rothermann, the daughter of a knighted manufacturer.^[3]The following year, their son Hermann Friedrich Maria was born. His marriage ended in divorce in 1923. In 1927 he sold the textile factory and decided to studymathematics,philosophyandpsychologyat theUniversity of Vienna.He embarked on a full-time literary career around the age of 40. At the age of 45, his first major literary work, the trilogyThe Sleepwalkers,was published byDaniel Brodyfor the Rhein Verlag in Munich in three volumes from 1930 to 1932.^[4]^[5]

He was acquainted with many of the writers, intellectuals, and artists of his time, includingRobert Musil,Rainer Maria Rilke,Elias Canetti,Leo Perutz,Franz Bleiand writer and formernude model Ea von Allesch.

After theannexation of Austriaby theNazison 12 March 1938, Broch was arrested in the small Alpine town ofBad Ausseefor possession of a socialist magazine and detained in the district jail from the 13th to the 31st of March.^[6]Shortly thereafter, a movement organized by friends – includingJames Joyce,Thornton Wilder,and his translatorsEdwinandWilla Muir– managed to help him emigrate; first toBritainand then to theUnited States,where he published his novelThe Death of Virgiland his collection of short storiesThe Guiltless.While in exile, he also continued to write on politics and work on mass psychology, similar toElias CanettiandHannah Arendt.His essay on mass behaviour remained unfinished. Broch's work on mass psychology was intended to form part of more ambitious project to defenddemocracy,human rights,and human dignity as irreducible ethical absolutes in a postreligious age.^[7]

From the 15th of August to the 15th of September 1939, Hermann Broch lived at theAlbert Einstein House at 112 Mercer Street Princeton, New Jerseywhen the Einsteins were on vacation.^[8]From 1942 to 1948 Broch lived in anattic apartment in Eric and Lili Kahler's house at One Evelyn Place in Princeton, New Jersey.^[9]Broch died in 1951 inNew Haven,Connecticut.He is buried inKillingworth, Connecticut,in the cemetery on Roast Meat Hill Road. He was nominated for theNobel Prize in Literaturein 1950.^[10]

Work

Broch's first major literary work was the trilogyThe Sleepwalkers(Die Schlafwandler), published in three volumes from 1930 to 1932. Broch takes "the degeneration of values" as his theme.^{[citation needed]}The trilogy has been praised byMilan Kundera,whose writing has been greatly influenced by Broch.^[11]

One of his foremost works,The Death of Virgil(Der Tod des Vergil) was first published in June 1945 in both itsEnglishtranslation and original German.^[12]^[13]^[14]Having begun the text as a short radio lecture in 1937,^[15]Broch expanded and redeveloped the text over the next eight years of his life, which witnessed a short incarceration in an Austrian prison after theAustrian Anschluss,^[16]his flight to Scotland via England,^[17]and his eventual exile in the United States.^[18]This extensive, difficult novel interweaves reality, hallucination, poetry and prose, and reenacts the last 18 hours of theRomanpoetVirgil's life in the port of Brundisium (Brindisi). Here, shocked by the balefulness (Unheil) of the society he glorifies in hisAeneid,the feverish Virgil resolves to burn his epic, but is thwarted by his close friend and emperorAugustusbefore he succumbs to his fatal ailment. The final chapter exhibits the final hallucinations of the poet, where Virgil voyages to a distant land at which he witnesses roughly the biblical creation story in reverse.

Broch's final published work before he died wasThe Guiltless(Die Schuldlosen,1950), a collection of stories.^[19]

Broch demonstrates mastery of a wide range of styles, from the gentle parody ofTheodor Fontanein the first volume ofThe Sleepwalkersthrough the essayistic segments of the third volume to thedithyrambicphantasmagoria ofThe Death of Virgil.^{[citation needed]}

Selected bibliography

Die Schlafwandler. Eine Romantrilogie(1930–32).The Sleepwalkers: A Trilogy,trans. byEdwinandWilla Muir(1932).
- Pasenow; oder, Die Romantik – 1888(1930).Part One: The Romantic.
- Esch; oder, Die Anarchie – 1903(1931).Part Two: The Anarchist.
- Huguenau, oder, Die Sachlichkeit – 1918(1932).Part Three: The Realist.
Die unbekannte Größe(1933).The Unknown Quantity,trans. byEdwinandWilla Muir(1935).
Der Tod des Vergil(1945).The Death of Virgil,trans. byJean Starr Untermeyer(1945).
Die Schuldlosen(1950).The Guiltless,trans. byRalph Manheim(1974).
Short Stories(1966), edited by E. W. Herd, introduction in English, text in German. Includes: "Verlorener Sohn"; "Eine leichte Enttäuschung"; "Der Meeresspiegel"; and "Die Heimkehr des Vergil".
Hofmannsthal und seine Zeit(1974).Hugo von Hofmannsthaland His Time,trans. by Michael P. Steinberg (1984).
Die Verzauberung(1976).The Spell,trans. by Hermann Broch de Rothermann (1987).
Geist and Zeitgeist: The Spirit in an Unspiritual Age(2002). Six essays translated by John Hargraves.

Complete works in German:Kommentierte Werkausgabe,ed. Paul Michael Lützeler. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1974–1981.

KW 1: Die Schlafwandler. Eine Romantrilogie
KW 2: Die unbekannte Größe. Roman
KW 3: Die Verzauberung. Roman
KW 4: Der Tod des Vergil. Roman
KW 5: Die Schuldlosen. Roman in elf Erzählungen
KW 6: Novellen
KW 7: Dramen
KW 8: Gedichte
KW 9/ 1+2: Schriften zur Literatur
KW 10/ 1+2: Philosophische Schriften
KW 11: Politische Schriften
KW 12: Massenwahntheorie
KW 13/ 1+2+3: Briefe.

Notes

^"Broch, Hermann (1886–1951) - Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism".www.rem.routledge.com.Retrieved2021-09-24.
^"A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch".Boydell and Brewer.Retrieved2021-09-24.
^Lützeler 1985,p. 51.
^Hermann Broch –Daniel BrodyBriefwechsel 1930–1951
^Lützeler, Paul Michael (1987).Hermann Broch: A Biography.Quartet.ISBN 978-0-7043-2604-0.
^Winkler, Michael (1982).Exile: The Writer's Experience.Vol. 99. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 141–156.doi:10.5149/9781469658421_spalek.ISBN 9781469658421.JSTOR 10.5149/9781469658421_spalek.
^Bartram, Graham; McGaughey, Sarah (2019).A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch.Camden House. p. 8.
^Lützeler, Paul Michael (2011).Hermann Broch: eine Biographie.Suhrkamp Verlag. p. 251.ISBN 9783518751015.(Late in the summer of 1939, Einstein rented a cottage on Nassau Point inCutchogue, New Yorkso that he could put his sailboat in Horshoe Cove.)
^"In Exile".Princeton University Department of German.
^"Nomination%20archive".April 2020.
^Salmon, Interviewed by Christian (1984)."The Art of Fiction No. 81".The Paris Review. Interviews.Vol. Summer 1984, no. 92.ISSN 0031-2037.Retrieved2021-09-24.
^Peters, George F. (1977).""The Death of Virgil": "Ein Englisches Gedicht?"".Modern Austrian Literature.10(1): 43–54.ISSN 0026-7503.JSTOR 24645661.
^Lützeler 1985,pp. 294–295.
^"Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction".Kirkus Reviews.Retrieved2021-09-27.
^Lützeler 1985,p. 213.
^Lützeler 1985,pp. 218–220.
^Lützeler 1985,pp. 235–242.
^Lützeler 1985,p. 243.
^O'Hara, J. D. (1974-04-21)."The Guiltless".The New York Times.ISSN 0362-4331.Retrieved2021-09-24.

References

Lützeler, Paul Michael (1985).Hermann Broch: Eine Biographie.Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.ISBN 3-518-03572-X.
Lützeler, Paul Michael (2011).Hermann Broch und die Moderne: Roman, Menschenrecht, Biographie.München: Wilhelm Fink.ISBN 978-3-7705-5101-9.

External links

Petri Liukkonen."Hermann Broch".Books and Writers.
IN SEARCH OF THE ABSOLUTE NOVEL– 1985 review ofThe Sleepwalkersby Theodore Ziolkowski
Hermann Broch archive at Yale University
The SleepwalkersatThe Complete Review
Geist and ZeitgeistatThe Complete Review
Death of VirgilatThe Complete Review
A personal page about Broch's writings, and about Broch's son, H.F. Broch de Rothermann
IAB, an international group of scholars working on Hermann Broch, with biography, bibliography, and links
H. F. Broch de Rothermann Papers.Yale Collection of German Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

[1] "Broch, Hermann (1886–1951) - Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism".www.rem.routledge.com.Retrieved2021-09-24.

[2] "A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch".Boydell and Brewer.Retrieved2021-09-24.

[FOOTNOTELützeler198551-3] Lützeler 1985,p. 51.

[4] Hermann Broch –Daniel BrodyBriefwechsel 1930–1951

[5] Lützeler, Paul Michael (1987).Hermann Broch: A Biography.Quartet.ISBN 978-0-7043-2604-0.

[6] Winkler, Michael (1982).Exile: The Writer's Experience.Vol. 99. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 141–156.doi:10.5149/9781469658421_spalek.ISBN 9781469658421.JSTOR 10.5149/9781469658421_spalek.

[7] Bartram, Graham; McGaughey, Sarah (2019).A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch.Camden House. p. 8.

[8] Lützeler, Paul Michael (2011).Hermann Broch: eine Biographie.Suhrkamp Verlag. p. 251.ISBN 9783518751015.(Late in the summer of 1939, Einstein rented a cottage on Nassau Point inCutchogue, New Yorkso that he could put his sailboat in Horshoe Cove.)

[9] "In Exile".Princeton University Department of German.

[10] "Nomination%20archive".April 2020.

[11] Salmon, Interviewed by Christian (1984)."The Art of Fiction No. 81".The Paris Review. Interviews.Vol. Summer 1984, no. 92.ISSN 0031-2037.Retrieved2021-09-24.

[12] Peters, George F. (1977).""The Death of Virgil": "Ein Englisches Gedicht?"".Modern Austrian Literature.10(1): 43–54.ISSN 0026-7503.JSTOR 24645661.

[FOOTNOTELützeler1985294–295-13] Lützeler 1985,pp. 294–295.

[14] "Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction".Kirkus Reviews.Retrieved2021-09-27.

[FOOTNOTELützeler1985213-15] Lützeler 1985,p. 213.

[FOOTNOTELützeler1985218–220-16] Lützeler 1985,pp. 218–220.

[FOOTNOTELützeler1985235–242-17] Lützeler 1985,pp. 235–242.

[FOOTNOTELützeler1985243-18] Lützeler 1985,p. 243.

[19] O'Hara, J. D. (1974-04-21)."The Guiltless".The New York Times.ISSN 0362-4331.Retrieved2021-09-24.

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