In Musil’s fiction and essays, World War I is presented as triggered by a European crisis that affected not only the ethical dimension, but also certain fundamental aesthetic principles of German culture. This paper traces Musil’s reflections from his articles immediately preceding the war, through his essays of the 1920s, to his short pieces collected in the Posthumous Pages. The purpose is to bring out the peculiarity of his inquiry into the symptoms, the anthropological, philosophical, psychological, ethical causes that have produced the need for a «meta- physical bang» in European people, and the equally peculiar range of possible solutions he suggests concerning literary forms, aesthetic thinking, and criticism of ideology.
Fictionalizing Europe: Robert Musil’s Eye on the War in the Context of the Deutsche Moderne
Zenobi, L
2023-01-01
Abstract
In Musil’s fiction and essays, World War I is presented as triggered by a European crisis that affected not only the ethical dimension, but also certain fundamental aesthetic principles of German culture. This paper traces Musil’s reflections from his articles immediately preceding the war, through his essays of the 1920s, to his short pieces collected in the Posthumous Pages. The purpose is to bring out the peculiarity of his inquiry into the symptoms, the anthropological, philosophical, psychological, ethical causes that have produced the need for a «meta- physical bang» in European people, and the equally peculiar range of possible solutions he suggests concerning literary forms, aesthetic thinking, and criticism of ideology.Pubblicazioni consigliate
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