IV.

20th-Century Fiction and Poetry

Universality and preoccupation with psychological analysis merge in the biographies written by Stefan Zweig. These include Erasmus von Rotterdam (1934; trans. 1934), Maria Stuart (1935; trans. 1935), and Marie Antoinette (1932). His fiction also plumbs the depth of emotional aberration, as in Amok (1922; trans. 1931), Verwirrung (1925; Conflicts, 1927), and Ungeduld des Herzen (1938; trans. 1939). In the poetry of Anton Wildgans and of Georg Trakl and in the plays of Franz Theodor Czokor, the intensity of the Expressionist style is evident.

Of 20th-century Austrian novelists, Hermann Broch is closest to James Joyce—as was Schnitzler in drama. His Der Tod des Vergil (1945; Death of Virgil, 1946) uses an inner monologue to express the despair of the Roman poet over the discrepancy between art and truth. Robert Musil wrote the monumental unfinished novel Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (1931-1943; The Man Without Qualities 1953-1960), which probes the possibility of the freedom of humanity, emancipated from prejudices and habits. The novel also analyses the process of disintegration beneath the complacency of Viennese life. Social analysis is also found in the voluminous novels of Heimito von Doderer, Ein Mord, den jeder begeht (1938; Every Man a Murderer, 1964) and Die Dämonen (1956; The Demons, 1964). Doderer, influenced by the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the French writer Marcel Proust, used a web of human relationships to give substance and structure to his novels of Viennese life after World War II. Doderer was probably the most outstanding force in post-World War II Austrian literature.

Among later writers, Fritz Hochwälder achieved renown in Europe with neatly structured historical dramas such as Das heilige Experiment (1941). Ilse Aichinger, a writer of short stories, and Ingeborg Bachmann, a poet, were also widely read. One of the versatile younger authors, who often write for television, is Peter Handke, whose play Kaspar (1969), based on the legend of Kaspar Hauser, was much performed. His novel of extreme alienation, Die linkshändige Frau (1976; The Left-Handed Woman, 1978), was later made into a film.