Deleatur yhe: Created page

2026-08-31T01:57:10Z

Created page

New page

{{Short description|Austrian writer (1886–1951)}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{More footnotes|date=March 2012}}
{{Lead too short|date=April 2023}}
}}
{{Infobox writer 
|name = Hermann Broch
|image = Hermann Broch portrait photograph, 1909.jpg
|caption =
|pen_name =
|birth_date = {{birth date|1886|11|01}}
|birth_place = [[Vienna]], [[Austria-Hungary]]
|death_date = {{death date and age|1951|05|30|1886|11|01}}
|death_place = [[New Haven, Connecticut]], U.S.
|occupation =
|period =
|genre =
|subject =
|movement = [[Modernism]]
|influences =
|influenced =
|signature =
}}

'''Hermann Broch''' ({{IPA|de-AT|brɔx|lang}}; 1 November 1886 – 30 May 1951) was an Austrian [[writer]], best known for two major works of [[Modernism|modernist]] fiction: ''[[The Sleepwalkers (Broch novel)|The Sleepwalkers]]'' (''Die Schlafwandler'', 1930–32) and ''[[The Death of Virgil]]'' (''Der Tod des Vergil'', 1945).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Broch, Hermann (1886–1951) - Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism|url=https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/broch-hermann-1886-1951|access-date=2021-09-24|website=www.rem.routledge.com|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch|url=https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781571135414/a-companion-to-the-works-of-hermann-broch/|access-date=2021-09-24|website=Boydell and Brewer|language=en-GB}}</ref>

==Life==
Broch was born in [[Vienna]], [[Austria-Hungary]], to a prosperous [[History of the Jews in Austria|Jewish]] 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]] and married Franziska von Rothermann, the daughter of a knighted manufacturer.{{sfn|Lützeler|1985|p=51}} 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]], [[philosophy]] and [[psychology]] at the [[University of Vienna]]. 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 (Broch)|The Sleepwalkers]]'', was published by [[Daniel Brody]] for the Rhein Verlag in Munich in three volumes from 1930 to 1932.<ref>Hermann Broch – [[Daniel Brody]] Briefwechsel 1930–1951</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Lützeler|first=Paul Michael|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YPUgAQAAIAAJ|title=Hermann Broch: A Biography|date=1987|publisher=Quartet|isbn=978-0-7043-2604-0|language=en}}</ref>

He was acquainted with many of the writers, intellectuals, and artists of his time, including [[Robert Musil]], [[Rainer Maria Rilke]], [[Elias Canetti]], [[Leo Perutz]], [[Franz Blei]] and writer and former [[Model_(art)#Academic modeling|nude model]] [[Ea von Allesch]].

After the [[Anschluss|annexation of Austria]] by the [[Nazism|Nazis]] on 12 March 1938, Broch was arrested in the small Alpine town of [[Bad Aussee]] for possession of a socialist magazine and detained in the district jail from the 13th to the 31st of March.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Winkler|first=Michael|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469658421_spalek.14|title=Exile: The Writer's Experience|year=1982|volume=99|pages=141–156|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|doi=10.5149/9781469658421_spalek|jstor=10.5149/9781469658421_spalek|isbn=9781469658421}}</ref> Shortly thereafter, a movement organized by friends – including [[James Joyce]], [[Thornton Wilder]], and his translators [[Edwin Muir|Edwin]] and [[Willa Muir]] – managed to help him emigrate; first to [[UK|Britain]] and then to the [[United States]], where he published his novel ''[[The Death of Virgil]]'' 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]] and [[Hannah Arendt]]. 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]], [[human rights]], and human dignity as irreducible ethical absolutes in a postreligious age.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bartram |first1=Graham |last2=McGaughey |first2=Sarah |title=A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch |date=2019 |publisher=Camden House |page=8}}</ref>

From the 15th of August to the 15th of September 1939, Hermann Broch lived at the [[Albert Einstein House|Albert Einstein House at 112 Mercer Street Princeton, New Jersey]] when the Einsteins were on vacation.<ref>{{cite book|author=Lützeler, Paul Michael|title=Hermann Broch: eine Biographie|publisher=Suhrkamp Verlag|year=2011|page=251|isbn=9783518751015|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S3FTCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA251}} (Late in the summer of 1939, Einstein rented a cottage on Nassau Point in [[Cutchogue, New York]] so that he could put his sailboat in Horseshoe Cove.)</ref> From 1942 to 1948 Broch lived in an [[Kahler-Kreis|attic apartment in Eric and Lili Kahler's house at One Evelyn Place in Princeton, New Jersey]].<ref>{{cite web|website=Princeton University Department of German|title=In Exile|url=https://german.princeton.edu/department/about/history}}</ref> Broch died in 1951 in [[New Haven]], [[Connecticut]]. He is buried in [[Killingworth, Connecticut]], in the cemetery on Roast Meat Hill Road. He was nominated for the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1950.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=1355|title=Nomination%20archive|date=April 2020}}</ref>

==Work==
Broch's first major literary work was the trilogy ''[[The Sleepwalkers (Broch)|The Sleepwalkers]]'' (''Die Schlafwandler''), published in three volumes from 1930 to 1932. Broch centers the essay "Zerfall der Werte" ("The Disintegration of Values") in the final novel, providing an overarching theory of the trilogy's form and approach to contemporary culture.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bartram |first=Graham |title=A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch |last2=McGaughey |first2=Sarah |publisher=Camden House |year=2019 |isbn=978-1-78744-465-2 |pages=38}}</ref> The trilogy has been praised by [[Milan Kundera]], whose writing has been greatly influenced by Broch.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Salmon|first=Interviewed by Christian|date=1984|title=The Art of Fiction No. 81|journal=The Paris Review. Interviews.|language=en|volume=Summer 1984|issue=92|url=https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2977/the-art-of-fiction-no-81-milan-kundera|access-date=2021-09-24|issn=0031-2037}}</ref>

One of his foremost works, ''[[The Death of Virgil]]'' (''Der Tod des Vergil'') was first published in June 1945 in both its [[English language|English]] translation and original German.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Peters|first=George F.|title="The Death of Virgil": "Ein Englisches Gedicht? "|date=1977|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24645661|journal=Modern Austrian Literature|volume=10|issue=1|pages=43–54|jstor=24645661|issn=0026-7503}}</ref>{{sfn|Lützeler|1985|pp=294–295}}<ref>{{Cite web|title=Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/hermann-broch-3/the-death-of-virgil/|access-date=2021-09-27|website=Kirkus Reviews|language=en}}</ref> Having begun the text as a short radio lecture in 1937,{{sfn|Lützeler|1985|p=213}} 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 [[Anschluss|Austrian Anschluss]],{{sfn|Lützeler|1985|pp=218–220}} his flight to Scotland via England,{{sfn|Lützeler|1985|pp=235–242}} and his eventual exile in the United States.{{sfn|Lützeler|1985|p=243}} This extensive, difficult novel interweaves reality, hallucination, poetry and prose, and reenacts the last 18 hours of the [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] poet [[Virgil]]'s life in the port of Brundisium ([[Brindisi]]). Here, shocked by the balefulness (''Unheil'') of the society he glorifies in his ''[[Aeneid]]'', the feverish Virgil resolves to burn his epic, but is thwarted by his close friend and emperor [[Augustus]] 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 last work to be published before his death was ''The Guiltless'' (''Die Schuldlosen'', 1950), a collection of stories.<ref>{{Cite news|last=O'Hara|first=J. D.|date=1974-04-21|title=The Guiltless|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/04/21/archives/the-guiltless-the-nation-of-the-infinite-the-nation-of-death.html|access-date=2021-09-24|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> An incomplete novel was posthumously published in German as: ''Der Versucher'' in 1953, ''Demeter'' in 1967, ''Bergroman'' in 1969, and ''Die Verzauberung'' in 1976. The first manuscript was translated into English as ''The Spell'' by Broch's son, H.F. Broch de Rothermann and published in 1987.

Broch demonstrates mastery of a wide range of styles, from the gentle parody of [[Theodor Fontane]] in the first volume of ''The Sleepwalkers'' through the essayistic segments of the third volume to the phantasmagoria in verse form of ''The Death of Virgil.''

==Selected bibliography==
* ''[[The Sleepwalkers (Broch novel)|Die Schlafwandler. Eine Romantrilogie]]'' (1930–32). ''The Sleepwalkers: A Trilogy'', trans. by [[Edwin Muir|Edwin]] and [[Willa Muir]] (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 Muir|Edwin]] and [[Willa Muir]] (1935).
* ''[[The Death of Virgil|Der Tod des Vergil]]'' (1945). ''The Death of Virgil'', trans. by [[Jean Starr Untermeyer]] (1945).
* ''Die Schuldlosen'' (1950). ''The Guiltless'', trans. by [[Ralph Manheim]] (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]] 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]]

* [[List of Austrian writers]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book|last=Lützeler|first=Paul Michael|title=Hermann Broch: Eine Biographie|year=1985|publisher=Suhrkamp Verlag|location=Frankfurt am Main|isbn=3-518-03572-X|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/hermannbrocheine0000lutz}}
*{{cite book | last=Lützeler | first=Paul Michael | title=Hermann Broch und die Moderne: Roman, Menschenrecht, Biographie | year=2011 | publisher=Wilhelm Fink | location=München|isbn=978-3-7705-5101-9}}

{{refend}}

==Further reading==
*Graham Bartram, Sarah McGaughey, and Galin Tihanov, ed. ''A Companion to the Works of Hermann Broch''. Camden House: Rochester, NY, 2019. {{ISBN|9781571135414}}
*Michael Kessler and Paul Michael Lützeler, ed. ''Hermann-Broch-Handbuch''. DeGruyter: Berlin and Boston, 2015. {{ISBN|978-3-11-029556-6}}
*Elias Canetti, 'Herman Broch - Discorso per il suo cinquantesimo compleanno - Vienna , novembre 1936', in 'La coscienza delle parole', ed. Biblioteca Adelphi 141, 1995 ({{ISBN|88-459-0585-8}}).

==External links==
{{Commons category|Hermann Broch}}
* {{Books and Writers |id=broch |name=Hermann Broch}}
* [https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/03/books/in-search-of-the-absolute-novel.html ''IN SEARCH OF THE ABSOLUTE NOVEL'' – 1985 review of ''The Sleepwalkers'' by Theodore Ziolkowski]
* [http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.broch Hermann Broch archive at Yale University]
* [http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/brochh/schlafw.htm ''The Sleepwalkers'' at ''The Complete Review'']
* [http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/brochh/geist.htm ''Geist and Zeitgeist'' at ''The Complete Review'']
* [http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/brochh/toddesv.htm ''Death of Virgil'' at ''The Complete Review'']
* [https://www.bmccedd.org/Broch.html A personal page about Broch's writings, and about Broch's son, H.F. Broch de Rothermann]
* [http://iab.dickinson.edu/ IAB, an international group of scholars working on Hermann Broch, with biography, bibliography, and links]
* [[hdl:10079/fa/beinecke.brochrot|H. F. Broch de Rothermann Papers]]. Yale Collection of German Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

{{German literature}}
{{Modernism}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Broch, Hermann}}
[[Category:1886 births]]
[[Category:1951 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:Writers from Vienna]]
[[Category:Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United States]]
[[Category:Emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United States]]
[[Category:Jewish Austrian writers]]
[[Category:Modernist writers]]
[[Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism]]
[[Category:Austrian Roman Catholic writers]]
[[Category:Exilliteratur writers]]
[[Category:Analysands of Paul Federn]]
[[Category:20th-century German male writers]]
[[Category:German-language poets]]
[[Category:20th-century Austrian writers]]

Hermann Broch - Revision history

Deleatur yhe: Created page