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Musil's Die Schwaermer
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Because Robert Musil's own training and inclinations were scientific, he was particularly qualified to describe the problems of the modern intellectual. Musil believed that although modern man's reason and logic have been acutely developed, his emotional life has been stunted and his social adjustment has been rendered precarious. Intellectual man finds himself isolated and a victim of introspection. Musil contended that the tension between the intellect and the emotions must be resolved, that solutions must somehow be provided which will lead to a richer and higher level of human existence. In Musil's work the intellectual hero strives to heal the fatal split in his psyche and to achieve a more balanced character and a better integration with other human beings.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1965
References
1 Among the publications on Robert Musil which stress his concern for a more balanced man are: Ernst Fischer, “Das Werk Robert Musils,” Sinn und Form, ix (1957), 851–901; Joseph Strelka, Kafka, Musil, Broch und die Entwicklung des modernen Romans (Wien, 1959), pp. 36–63; Burton Pike, Robert Musil, An Introduction to his Work (Ithaca, N.Y., 1961); Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins, Robert Musil, Eine Einfuehrung in das Werk (Stuttgart, 1962).
2 See Adolf Frisé, foreword to Robert Musil, Prosa, Dramen, spaete Briefe, Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben (Hamburg, 1957), p. 12; Adolf Frisé, Anhang zu Robert Musil, Tagebuecher, Aphorismen, Essays und Reden, Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben (Hamburg, 1955), p. 954; Oskar Maurus Fontana, “Erinnerungen an Robert Musil,” Franz Theodor Csokor, “Gedenkrede zu Musils 80. Geburtstag,” Karl Otten, “Eindruecke von Robert Musil”—all in Robert Musil, Leben, Werk, Wirkung, ed. Karl Dinklage (Hamburg und Wien, 1960), pp. 33–34, 352–353, 362 resp.
3 Robert Musil, Die Schwaermer, in Prosa, Dramen, spaete Briefe, Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben (Hamburg, 1957), p. 309. Page references in parentheses are to this edition. The translation is my own.
4 Note that Ulrich, the hero of Musil's novel Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, is thirty-two and therefore shares many of the problems that will be discussed. Robert Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (Hamburg, 1952), p. 14. Future references to Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften are to this edition.
5 Musil uses similar language to describe Clarisse's falling in love with her husband, Walter, in Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, p. 149.
6 The notion of possibility eventually becomes one of the main themes of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, see particularly Ch. lxii: “Auch die Erde, namentlich aber Ulrich, huldigt der Utopie des Essayismus,” pp. 254 ff.
7 Musil's novella Tonka treats this problem in great detail. See also my “An Interpretation of Musil's Novelle ‘Tonka’,” Monatshefte, liii (1961), 73–85.
8 Musil's ideas regarding love among members of the same family are stressed by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins in Robert Musil, Eine Einführung in das Werk (Stuttgart, 1962), see pp. 78 and 104 in particular.
9 Musil treats the role of music in greater detail in Ch. xxxviii of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, “Clarisse und ihre Daemonen.” See also my article “Musil's Musicians,” Monatshefte, liii (1960), 9–17.
10 Musil again takes up the notion of “frenetic goodness” in Ch. lxi of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, “Das Ideal der drei Abhandlungen oder die Utopie des exakten Lebens,” pp. 251 ff.
11 Musil develops this thesis at great length in the key Ch. cxvi, “Die beiden Baeume des Lebens und die Forderung eines Generalsekretariates der Genauigkeit und Seele,” Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, pp. 596 ff.
12 The actions of Moosbrugger, the convicted murderer, are described by Ulrich in the same terms in Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, p. 668.