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Hermann Broch's Die Schuldlosen: An Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2021

Hermann J. Weigand
Hermann J. Weigand*
Affiliation:
Yale University New Haven, Conn.
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Extract

Few men of letters have been personally loved and revered like Hermann Broch. Reducing the sphere of his private wants to an unbelievable minimum, he radiated a warmth and tolerance and sympathy to rare at to be unforgettable. His seeing eye, set in the face of a raven, had a quality of timeless wisdom that neutralised specific curiosity regarding his private past and even his literary development. For such things, so far as they mattered, there would be plenty of time, it seemed, in years to come. Did he not say with a chuckle that he would live to be a hundred? Then came the stunning shock, on a late May morning in 1951: he was dead.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , June 1953 , pp. 323 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1953

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References

page 323 note 1 Roman in Elf Erähumgen (Zürich: Rhein Veriag, 1950).

page 325 note 2 “The Essence and Origin of Tragedy,” JAAC, x (1951), 123.

page 326 note 3 The end of “Erkaufte Matter” repeats the symbolism foreshadowing Andreas' death in its double aspect (312).

page 329 note 4 The early depreciating identifiation of the bee with the bourgeois (“dieses Wahrzeichen bürgerlicher Vorsorge, bürgerlichen Sicherheitsstrebens, bürgeriicher Disziplin, bürgerliehen Sparkassen” 108) prepares for an ironic effect of surprise with the coming to the fore of the bee as a symbol of cosmic song.

page 330 note 5 K. Kerényi, “Das Urkind in der Urzeit,” m C. G. Jung and . Kerényi, Einführung in das Wesen der Mythologic, (Amsterdam/Leilpzig, Akadernische Verlagsanstalt Pantheon n.d.), p.59.

page 330 note 6 There are some striking points of resemblance between this story and the final, climactic chapter of Hermann Hesse's light and fanciful story Die Morgenlandfahrt (1932). In both cases we have a trial or reckoning, a defendant freely confessing to grave crimes, a Jodge waving these aside as mere peccadillos and determined to probe into a deeper stratum of guilt; in both cases, finally, there is s transcendental identification of the judge's role with the musical mood of the finale of Mosart's Don Giovanni, despite the fact that neither Hesse's nor Broch', hero represents the seducer type. Hots begins a paragraph as follows: “‘Selbatankläger H.‘, hob Leo wieder an, und jetzt klang aus dem Goldglans seines Ornates und seines Baldachins hervor seine Stimme so kühl und hell und durchdringend wie die Stimme des Komturs, wenn er im letzten Akt vor Don Juans Tür erscheint” (p. 100)

page 331 note 7 The Grandfather, his sturdy vigor in no need of support, also carries a “Stock, der offenbar bla als Wanderschaftsemblem knotig in seiner Hand ruhte” (343).

page 332 note 8 Its first overt mention shows the talking barmaid seen in profile: “zwischen Ober- und Unterkiefer ergab sich ein Dreieck” (20). Retrospectively, the duly forewarned reader can apprehend any number of triangular relationship, in the first story.