Studies in Symbolist and Modern Literature

Robert Musil saw his Vienna as both uniquely itself and “nothing but a particularly clear-cut case of the modern world,” and this seminar will explore how some of the central problems of both literary modernism and of modern political, social, and sexual history can be seen with particular vividness in the Austria of 1900 to 1914. Although its subject might also be called “The Last Days of Imperial Mitteleuropa,” I am not especially concerned with reading the various works for their foreshadowing of the First World War, nor for their relationships to various literary-historical taxonomies (e.g., “the Bildungsroman,” “the age of suspicion,” etc.). Instead, we will be probing a set of related themes across a number of genres whose deeper family resemblance will only emerge as our discussion itself unfolds. The central text of the seminar will be Musil’s Man without Qualities which we will be reading in its incomplete entirety. In addition, there will be a considerable amount of supplementary material available for discussion, depending in part on the particular interests of the class, including, for example, readings from Freud, Kafka, Schoenberg, and Herzl. We will also be listening to music, especially the operas of Richard Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg and looking at art from the period. Regular and active in-class participation and a willingness to engage in copious reading are the principal prerequisites for the course.

Texts:

Robert Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (Hamburg: Rowholt)) 2 vols. Paperback

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities (New York: Vintage ) 2 vols. Paperback

Joseph Roth, Radetzkymarsch (Hamburg: Rowohlt, paperback)

Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, paperback)