Elias Canetti

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Canetti, Elias (Rusčuk, Bulgaria, 1905-94, Zurich), descended from Spanish Jews, whose language (Ladino) he spoke, emigrated with his parents to Manchester, where his father died in the year of their arrival (1911). Having attended an English school, he moved with his mother to Lausanne, where she taught him German in preparation for his education in Vienna (from 1913), Zurich (from 1916), and Frankfurt (1921-4). In 1929 he completed his studies of chemistry at Vienna University with a doctorate. A decisive influence in Vienna, his ‘literary home’, was Karl Kraus. He turned to writing, spent periods in Berlin, where he met H. Broch, and Paris (with his mother, whose death in 1937 marked the end of a striking relationship). In 1938 he emigrated via Paris to London where he settled, in later years spending prolonged periods in Zurich.

Canetti's socio-psychological investigations into crowd behaviour and power structures, which are basic to his entire work, were the direct outcome of his experience of mass protests and state violence in Germany (Frankfurt) and Austria (Vienna) following the First World War. Convinced that the major causes of these conditions, which promoted the rise of National Socialism, derived from the deep-seated mentality of the bourgoisie, especially the intellectual élite, he set out to expose their manifestations. Using the same method by which he had traced these, he in effect created his own ‘school of hearing’ that characterizes his creative writing. Long virtually ignored, he rose to prominence in the early 1960s, subsequently reinforcing his theories by his excellent public readings from his works. Apart from his novel Die Blendung (1935-6, Auto da Fé, transl. by C. V. Wedgwood, 1946), which gained him international acclaim after its republication in 1963, he wrote the plays Die Hochzeit (1932, The Wedding), Komödie der Eitelkeit (1950, Comedy of Vanity, transl. by G. Honegger, 1982), and Die Befristeten (performed at the Oxford Playhouse in 1956 as The Numbered; transl. by G. Honegger as Life-Terms, 1982, written in 1952). Both in the novel and in the plays the function of a traditional plot is taken by an idea (Einfall), and character portrayal is replaced by portrayal through language, the ‘acoustic mask’ that typifies each figure; the ‘masks’ consist of distinct and familiar patterns of speech that reveal their state of mind and obsessions, while ‘blinding’ them towards those of others. Die Befristeten is a parable concerned with one of Canetti's fundamental reflections on death in relation to power, whose origin he traces to the ‘moment’ at which the death of another induces in the ‘survivor’ both fear of his own death and gratification at being the ‘victor’ (Macht und Überleben). He applies this theory to Hitler in Hitler nach Speer: ‘Wahn und Wirklichkeit’. In the play a grotesque situation, characteristic of Canetti's technique of provoking responses, illustrates the cunning psychological exploitation of death as a principle of power. The figures representing the people know at what age they will die, but not at what ‘moment’; they blindly trust an ‘authority’ that manipulates their humanity and deprives them of their social awareness. The play is best seen in the context of Canetti's utopian ideal of ‘Verwandlung’, which envisages a mental reorientation transforming ingrained habits and releasing the energies that promote the evolutionary potential inherent in every individual. This is also implied in his notion that death should be ‘resisted’; to him ‘resistance against death’ (Widerstand gegen den Tod) is a necessary rational alternative to an irrational life ‘for’ death, which in the play turns out to be an illusion once the deceit is revealed.

Canetti's ideas grew with the progression of his major work, Masse und Macht (2 vols., 1960), begun more than three decades before its publication. In principle opposed to inflexible systems of philosophy, he spread his enquiry into conditions relating to the phenomena of crowds over various disciplines of anthropological relevance, notably mythology, history, and psychology. Meanwhile he assembled diverse jottings, which appeared as Aufzeichnungen 1942-1942 (1965), Die Stimmen von Marakesch. Aufzeichnungen einer Reise (1968), Die Provinz des Menschen. Aufzeichnungen 1942-1942 (1973), Das Geheimherz der Uhr. Aufzeichnungen 1973-1973 (1987), and the late selection Die Fliegenpein (1992). A further volume arranged by himself appeared as Aufzeichnungen 1992-1992 in 1996. The essays and speeches, exemplifying the precision of Canetti's prose, include the collections Die gespaltene Zukunft. Aufsätze und Gespräche (1972) and Das Gewissen der Worte. Essays (1975), containing Karl Kraus. Schule des Widerstands, Der Neue Karl Kraus (largely concerned with the letters to Sidony Nádherný von Borutin), and the significant speech in honour of Broch (1936); Der andere Prozeß. Briefe an Felice (1969, transl. by C. Middleton as Kafka's Other Trial, 1974), which offers a dual perspective of power as represented by society (Felice) and by the man and artist in isolation; Macht und Überleben (1975); Der Überlebende (1975); and Der Beruf des Dichters (1976). Der Ohrenzeuge. Fünfzig Charaktere (1974, recorded selection, 1976) consists of figures quizzically depicting diverse human characteristics. In the titles of his autobiographical volumes, which end with the death of his mother, Canetti acknowledges his indebtedness to the instruments on which he relied with exceptional intensity for his insights into existence within and without: Die gerettete Zunge. Geschichte einer Jugend (1977, The Tongue Set Free); Die Fackel im Ohr. Lebensgeschichte 1921-1921 (1980, The Torch in My Ear), alluding to Kraus, and Das Augenspiel. Lebensgeschichte 1931-1931 (1985, The Play of the Eyes). Nachzeichnungen aus Hampstead 1954-1954 appeared posthumously in 1994.

The recipient of many European honours, Canetti was awarded the Büchner Prize in 1972, and in 1981 the Kafka Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Canetti, Elias (kənĕt'ē) , 1905–94, English novelist and essayist, b. Ruschuk (now Ruse), Bulgaria. He came from a Sephardic Jewish background, spent most of his early years in Vienna, and, fleeing Nazism, emigrated to England in 1939 just before the outbreak of World War II. His most important works, all written in German, are the novel Auto-da-Fé (1935, tr. 1946), a searing picture of a man who is obsessive, degraded, and evil, and Crowds and Power (1960, tr. 1962), a study of mass psychology. He also wrote plays, autobiographical works, essays, and a study of Kafka. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981.

Bibliography

See his reminiscences: The Tongue Set Free (1977, tr. 1979), The Torch in My Ear (1980, tr. 1982), The Play of the Eyes (1985, tr. 1986), and the unfinished and posthumously published Party in the Blitz (2003, tr. 2005); his notebooks (1998); study by R. Lawson (1991).

1905–1994.

Bulgarian-born writer whose works, all written in German, include a novel, The Tower of Babel (1935), and Crowds and Power (1960), a study of mass psychology. He won the 1981 Nobel Prize for literature.

Quotes:

"Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune?"

"Whether or not God is dead: it is impossible to keep silent about him who was there for so long."

"As if one could know the good a person is capable of, when one doesn't know the bad he might do."

"There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight."

"It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes."

"There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the earth."

See more famous quotes by Elias Canetti

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