Hermann Broch

Hermann Broch (German: [b]; November 1, 1886 Broch expanded and redeveloped the text over the next
May 30, 1951) was a 20th-century Austrian writer, con- eight years of his life, which witnessed a short incarcera-
sidered one of the major Modernists. tion in an Austrian prison after the Austrian Anschluss,[6]
his ight to Scotland via England,[7] and his eventual ex-
ile in the United States.[8] This extensive, dicult novel
1 Life interweaves reality, hallucination, poetry and prose, and
reenacts the last 18 hours of the Roman poet Virgil's life
in the port of Brundisium (Brindisi). Here, shocked by
Broch was born in Vienna to a prosperous Jewish family
the balefulness (Unheil) of the society he glories in his
and worked for some time in his familys factory, though
Aeneid, the feverish Virgil resolves to burn his epic, but
he maintained his literary interests privately. He was pre-
is thwarted by his close friend and emperor Augustus be-
destined to work in his fathers textile factory in Teesdorf,
fore he succumbs to his fatal ailment. The nal chapter
therefore, he attended a technical college for textile man-
exhibits the nal hallucinations of the poet, where Virgil
ufacture and a spinning and weaving college.
voyages to a distant land at which he witnesses roughly
In 1909 he converted to Roman Catholicism and married the biblical creation story in reverse.
Franziska von Rothermann, the daughter of a knighted
The French composer Jean Barraqu composed a number
manufacturer.[1] The following year, their son Hermann
of works inspired by The Death of Virgil.
Friedrich Maria was born. Later, Broch began to see
other women and the marriage ended in divorce in 1923. Erich Heller observed that if "The Death of Virgil is his
masterpiece... it is a very problematical one, for it at-
He was acquainted with Robert Musil, Rainer Maria
tempts to give literary shape to the authors growing aver-
Rilke, Elias Canetti, Leo Perutz, Franz Blei and his
sion to literature. In the very year the novel appeared,
devoted friend and inspiration, writer and former nude
Broch confessed to 'a deep revulsion' from literature as
model Ea von Allesch and many others. In 1927 he
such 'the domain of vanity and mendacity'. Written
sold the textile factory and decided to study mathematics,
with a paradoxical, lyrical exuberance, it is the imaginary
philosophy and psychology at the University of Vienna.
record of the poets last day and his renunciation of po-
He embarked on a full-time literary career only around
etry. He commands the manuscript of the Aeneid to be
the age of 40. At the age of 45, his rst novel, The Sleep-
destroyed, not because it is incomplete or imperfect but
walkers, was published by Daniel Brody, for the Rhein
[2] because it is poetry and not 'knowledge'. He even says
Verlag in 1931/1932 in Munich.
his Georgics are useless, inferior to any expert treatise on
With the annexation of Austria by the Nazis (1938), agriculture. His friend the Emperor Augustus undoes his
Broch was arrested, but a movement organized by friends design and his works are saved. (Erich Heller, Hitler in
including James Joyce managed to have him released a very Small Town, New York Times, January 25, 1987.)
and allowed to emigrate; rst to Britain and then to the
Other important works by Broch are The Sleepwalkers
United States, where he nished his novel The Death of
(Die Schlafwandler, 1932) and The Guiltless (Die Schuld-
Virgil and began to work, similar to Elias Canetti, on an
losen, 1950). The Sleepwalkers is a trilogy, where Broch
essay on mass behaviour, which remained unnished.
takes the degeneration of values as his theme. The tril-
Hermann Broch died in 1951 in New Haven, ogy has been praised by Milan Kundera, whose writing
Connecticut. He is buried in Killingworth, Con- has been greatly inuenced by Broch. Broch demon-
necticut, in the cemetery on Roast Meat Hill Road. strates mastery of a wide range of styles, from the gen-
He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in tle parody of Theodor Fontane in the rst volume of The
1950.[3] Sleepwalkers through the essayistic segments of the third
volume to the dithyrambic phantasmagoria of The Death
of Virgil.
2 Work
One of his foremost works, The Death of Virgil (Der Tod
des Vergil) was rst published in 1945 simultaneously in 3 Bibliography
its original German and in English translation.[4] Hav-
ing begun the text as a short radio lecture in 1937,[5] Selected titles translated into English:

1
2 7 EXTERNAL LINKS

Die Schlafwandler: Eine Romantrilogie: Pasenow; 7 External links

oder, Die Romantik 1888, 1931; Esch; oder, Die
Anarchie 1903, 1931; Huguenau, oder, Die Sach-
lichkeit 1918, 1932 Sleepwalkers: A Trilogy
Die Unbekannte Gre, 1933 The Unknown
Quantity
Der Tod des Vergil, 1945 The Death of Virgil
(trans. by Jean Starr Untermeyer)
Die Schuldlosen, 1950 The Guiltless (trans. by
Ralph Mannheim)
Der Versucher, 1953 Rhein-Verlag,AG, Zrich;
The Seducer
Short Stories, 1966
Petri Liukkonen. Hermann Broch. Books and
Writers (kirjasto.sci.). Archived from the original
on 4 July 2013.
IN SEARCH OF THE ABSOLUTE NOVEL 1985
review of The Sleepwalkers by Theodore Ziolkowski
Hermann Broch archive at Yale University
Some Broch quotations
Another review of The Sleepwalkers, with useful
links
Review of Geist and Zeitgeist

Hofmannsthal und seine Zeit, 1974 Hugo von Hof- Review of Death of Virgil
mannsthal and His Time A personal page about Brochs writings, and about
Die Verzauberung, 1976 The Spell Brochs son, H.F. Broch de Rothermann

Geist and Zeitgeist: The Spirit in an Unspiritual Age,

2003

For a more complete listing, see the MLA bibliography

4 See also
Exilliteratur

5 Notes
[1] Ltzeler 1985, p. 51.
[2] Hermann Broch Daniel Brody Briefwechsel 19301951
[3] http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_
people.php?id=1355
[4] Ltzeler 1985, pp. 294295.
[5] Ltzeler 1985, p. 213.
[6] Ltzeler 1985, pp. 218220.
[7] Ltzeler 1985, pp. 235242.
[8] Ltzeler 1985, p. 243.

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

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