Hermann Broch (; 1 November 1886 – 30 May 1951) was an
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n writer, best known for two major works of
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
fiction: ''
The Sleepwalkers'' (''Die Schlafwandler,'' 1930–32) and ''
The Death of Virgil
''The Death of Virgil'' (german: Der Tod des Vergil) is a 1945 novel by the Austrian author Hermann Broch. The narrative reenacts the last hours of life of the Roman poet Virgil, in the port of Brundisium (Brindisi), whence he had accompanied the ...
'' (''Der Tod des Vergil,'' 1945).
Life
Broch was born in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
,
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
, to a prosperous
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
ish family 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 in
Teesdorf; therefore, he attended a technical college for textile manufacture and a spinning and weaving college.
In 1909 he converted to
Roman Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...
and married Franziska von Rothermann, the daughter of a knighted manufacturer. 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 study
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
,
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
and
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
at the
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...
. He embarked on a full-time literary career around the age of 40. At the age of 45, his first major literary work, the trilogy ''
The Sleepwalkers'', was published by
Daniel Brody for the Rhein Verlag in Munich in three volumes from 1930 to 1932.
He was acquainted with many of the writers, intellectuals, and artists of his time, including
Robert Musil
Robert Musil (; 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, ''The Man Without Qualities'' (german: link=no, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften), is generally considered to be one of the most important ...
,
Rainer Maria Rilke
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogni ...
,
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti (; bg, Елиас Канети; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994) was a German-language writer, born in Ruse, Bulgaria to a Sephardic family. They moved to Manchester, England, but his father died in 1912, and his mother took her t ...
,
Leo Perutz
Leopold Perutz (2 November 1882, Prague – 25 August 1957, Bad Ischl) was an Austrian novelist and mathematician. He was born in Prague (now capital of the Czech Republic) and was thus a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He lived in Vienn ...
,
Franz Blei
Franz Blei (pseudonyms: Medardus, Dr. Peregrinus Steinhövel, Amadée de la Houlette, Franciscus Amadeus, Gussie Mc-Bill, Prokop Templin, Heliogabal, Nikodemus Schuster, L. O. G., Hans Adolar; January 18, 1871, ViennaJuly 10, 1942, Westbury, Lon ...
and writer and former
nude model Ea von Allesch
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...
.
After the
annexation of Austria
The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the Nazi Germany, German Reich on 13 March 1938.
The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "Ger ...
by the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
on 12 March 1938, Broch was arrested in the small Alpine town of
Bad Aussee
Bad Aussee (Central Bavarian: ''Bod Ossee'') is a town in the Austrian state of Styria, located at the confluence of the three sources of the Traun River in the Ausseerland region. Bad Aussee serves as the economic and cultural center of the Styri ...
for possession of a socialist magazine and detained in the district jail from the 13th to the 31st of March. Shortly thereafter, a movement organized by friends – including
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
,
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays ''Our Town'' and ''The Skin of Our Teeth'' — a ...
, and his translators
Edwin
The name Edwin means "rich friend". It comes from the Old English elements "ead" (rich, blessed) and "ƿine" (friend). The original Anglo-Saxon form is Eadƿine, which is also found for Anglo-Saxon figures.
People
* Edwin of Northumbria (die ...
and
Willa Muir
Willa Muir aka Agnes Neill Scott born Willa Anderson (13 March 189022 May 1970) was a Scottish novelist, essayist and translator.Beth Dickson, '' British women writers : a critical reference guide'' edited by Janet Todd. New York : Continuum, 1 ...
– managed to help him emigrate; first to
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
and then to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, where he published his novel ''
The Death of Virgil
''The Death of Virgil'' (german: Der Tod des Vergil) is a 1945 novel by the Austrian author Hermann Broch. The narrative reenacts the last hours of life of the Roman poet Virgil, in the port of Brundisium (Brindisi), whence he had accompanied the ...
'' and his collection of short stories ''The Guiltless''. While in exile, he also continued to write on politics and work on mass psychology, similar to
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti (; bg, Елиас Канети; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994) was a German-language writer, born in Ruse, Bulgaria to a Sephardic family. They moved to Manchester, England, but his father died in 1912, and his mother took her t ...
and
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
Arendt was born ...
. His essay on mass behaviour remained unfinished. Broch's work on mass psychology was intended to form part of more ambitious project to defend
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
,
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
, and human dignity as irreducible ethical absolutes in a postreligious age.
From the 15th of August to the 15th of September 1939, Hermann Broch lived at the
Albert Einstein House at 112 Mercer Street Princeton, New Jersey when the Einsteins were on vacation. From 1942 to 1948 Broch lived in an
attic apartment in Eric and Lili Kahler's house at One Evelyn Place in Princeton, New Jersey. Broch died in 1951 in
New Haven
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
,
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
. He is buried in
Killingworth, Connecticut
Killingworth is a New England town, town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 6,174 at the 2020 United States Census.
History
Killingworth was established from the area called Hammon ...
, in the cemetery on Roast Meat Hill Road. He was nominated for the
Nobel Prize in Literature
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, caption =
, awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature
, presenter = Swedish Academy
, holder = Annie Ernaux (2022)
, location = Stockholm, Sweden
, year = 1901
, ...
in 1950.
Work
Broch's first major literary work was the trilogy ''
The Sleepwalkers'' (''Die Schlafwandler''), published in three volumes from 1930 to 1932. Broch takes "the degeneration of values" as his theme. The trilogy has been praised by
Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera (, ; born 1 April 1929) is a Czech writer who went into exile in France in 1975, becoming a naturalised French citizen in 1981. Kundera's Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, then conferred again in 2019. He "sees himself ...
, whose writing has been greatly influenced by Broch.
One of his foremost works, ''
The Death of Virgil
''The Death of Virgil'' (german: Der Tod des Vergil) is a 1945 novel by the Austrian author Hermann Broch. The narrative reenacts the last hours of life of the Roman poet Virgil, in the port of Brundisium (Brindisi), whence he had accompanied the ...
'' (''Der Tod des Vergil'') was first published in June 1945 in both its
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
translation and original German. Having begun the text as a short radio lecture in 1937, Broch expanded and redeveloped the text over the next eight years of his life, which witnessed a short incarceration in an Austrian prison after the
Austrian Anschluss, his flight to Scotland via England, and his eventual exile in the United States. This extensive, difficult novel interweaves reality, hallucination, poetry and prose, and reenacts the last 18 hours of the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
poet
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
's life in the port of Brundisium (
Brindisi
Brindisi ( , ) ; la, Brundisium; grc, Βρεντέσιον, translit=Brentésion; cms, Brunda), group=pron is a city in the region of Apulia in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Brindisi, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea.
Histo ...
). Here, shocked by the balefulness (''Unheil'') of the society he glorifies in his ''
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...
'', the feverish Virgil resolves to burn his epic, but is thwarted by his close friend and emperor
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
before 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 was ''The Guiltless'' (''Die Schuldlosen'', 1950), a collection of stories.
Broch demonstrates mastery of a wide range of styles, from the gentle parody of
Theodor Fontane
Theodor Fontane (; 30 December 1819 – 20 September 1898) was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language realist author. He published the first of his novels, for which he is best known toda ...
in the first volume of ''The Sleepwalkers'' through the essayistic segments of the third volume to the
dithyramb
The dithyramb (; grc, διθύραμβος, ''dithyrambos'') was an ancient Greek hymn sung and danced in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility; the term was also used as an epithet of the god. Plato, in ''The Laws'', while discussing ...
ic phantasmagoria of ''The Death of Virgil.''
Selected bibliography
* ''
Die Schlafwandler. Eine Romantrilogie'' (1930–32). ''The Sleepwalkers: A Trilogy'', trans. by
Edwin
The name Edwin means "rich friend". It comes from the Old English elements "ead" (rich, blessed) and "ƿine" (friend). The original Anglo-Saxon form is Eadƿine, which is also found for Anglo-Saxon figures.
People
* Edwin of Northumbria (die ...
and
Willa Muir
Willa Muir aka Agnes Neill Scott born Willa Anderson (13 March 189022 May 1970) was a Scottish novelist, essayist and translator.Beth Dickson, '' British women writers : a critical reference guide'' edited by Janet Todd. New York : Continuum, 1 ...
(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. by
Edwin
The name Edwin means "rich friend". It comes from the Old English elements "ead" (rich, blessed) and "ƿine" (friend). The original Anglo-Saxon form is Eadƿine, which is also found for Anglo-Saxon figures.
People
* Edwin of Northumbria (die ...
and
Willa Muir
Willa Muir aka Agnes Neill Scott born Willa Anderson (13 March 189022 May 1970) was a Scottish novelist, essayist and translator.Beth Dickson, '' British women writers : a critical reference guide'' edited by Janet Todd. New York : Continuum, 1 ...
(1935).
* ''
Der Tod des Vergil'' (1945). ''The Death of Virgil'', trans. by
Jean Starr Untermeyer (1945).
* ''Die Schuldlosen'' (1950). ''The Guiltless'', trans. by
Ralph Manheim
Ralph Frederick Manheim (April 4, 1907 – September 26, 1992) was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He was one of the most acclaimed translators of the 20th cent ...
(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 Hofmannsthal
Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (; 1 February 1874 – 15 July 1929) was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.
Early life
Hofmannsthal was born in Landstraße, Vienna, the son of an upper-class ...
and 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.''
See also
*
Exilliteratur
German ''Exilliteratur'' (, ''exile literature'') is the name for works of German literature written in the German diaspora by refugee authors who fled from Nazi Germany, Nazi Austria, and the occupied territories between 1933 and 1945. These dis ...
Notes
References
*
*
Further reading
*Graham Bartram, Sarah McGaughey, and Galin Tihanov, ed. ''A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch''. Camden House: Rochester, NY, 2019.
*Michael Kessler and Paul Michael Lützeler, ed. ''Hermann-Broch-Handbuch''. DeGruyter: Berlin and Boston, 2015.
External links
*
''IN SEARCH OF THE ABSOLUTE NOVEL'' – 1985 review of ''The Sleepwalkers'' by Theodore ZiolkowskiHermann Broch archive at Yale University
*
ttp://iab.dickinson.edu/ 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.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Broch, Hermann
1886 births
1951 deaths
Writers from Vienna
Jewish emigrants from Austria to the United States after the Anschluss
Jewish Austrian writers
Modernist writers
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism
Austrian Roman Catholics
Exilliteratur writers
Analysands of Paul Federn
German male writers
German-language poets
20th-century Austrian writers