Robert Musil (his father was ennobled in 1918 and the hereditary title stood for him as Robert, Edler von Musil) (November 6, 1880, Klagenfurt, Austria – April 15, 1942, Geneva, Switzerland) was an Austrian writer. His unfinished long novel The Man Without Qualities (German: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften) is generally considered to be one of the most important modernist novels.
Biography
Musil was the son of Alfred Edler von Musil (1846-1924) and his wife Hermine (1853-1924), who lived together with an unrelated "uncle" Heinrich Reiter (b. 1856). The elder Musil was an engineer, appointed in 1891 to the chair of Mechanical Engineering at the German Technical University in Brno, and awarded a hereditary peerage in the Austro-Hungarian empire shortly before it collapsed. He was a second cousin of Alois Musil, the famous orientalist. [1]
The younger Musil had a short stature, but was strong and skilled at wrestling, and by his early teens already more than his parents could handle. Accordingly they sent him to military boarding school at Eisenstadt (1892-1894) and then Hranice, in that time also known as Mährisch Weißkirchen, (1894-1897). These school experiences are reflected in his first novel, Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless (The Confusions of Young Törless).
After graduating as a cadet, Musil briefly studied at a military college in Vienna during the fall of 1897, but then switched to engineering, joining his father's department at Brno. During his college career he studied engineering by day, but at night read literature and philosophy, and went to the theater and art exhibits. Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Ernst Mach were particular interests of his college years. Musil finished his studies in three years, then in 1902-1903 served as an unpaid assistant to Professor Julius Carl von Bach, in Stuttgart. During this time he began work on Young Törless.
Even then, however, Musil was growing tired with engineering and the limited worldview of engineers, and rather than settle into an engineering career, he launched a new round of doctoral studies (1903-1908) in psychology and philosophy at the University of Berlin under the renowned Professor Carl Stumpf. In 1905, Musil had met Martha Marcovaldi (January 21, 1874 - November 6, 1949) who was in subsequent years to become his wife. She had already been widowed and remarried, with two children, and was seven years older than Musil. In the midst of these studies his first novel, Young Törless, was published in 1906.
In 1909, Musil completed his doctorate and was offered a position by Professor Alexius Meinong, at the University of Graz, which he turned down to concentrate on literature. Over the next two years, he wrote and published two stories ("The Temptation of Quiet Veronica" and "The Perfecting of a Love") collected in Vereinigungen (Unions) published in 1911. During this same year, Martha's divorce was completed and Musil married her. Until this time, Musil had been supported by his family, but he now found employment first as a librarian in the Technical University of Vienna, and then in an editorial role with the Berlin Literary Journal, during which time he worked on a play entitled Die Schwärmer (The Enthusiasts), which was eventually published in 1921.
When World War I began, Musil joined the Army, stationed first in Tirol, and then away from danger at Austria's Supreme Army Command in Bolzano. In 1916 Musil visited Prague and met Franz Kafka whose work he held in high esteem, as he did the work of Bohemian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. After the war's end, and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Musil returned to his literary career in Vienna. He published a collection of short stories, Drei Frauen (Three Women), in 1924, and then in 1930 and 1932 the first two volumes of his masterpiece, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man Without Qualities). The novel deals with the moral and intellectual decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire through the eyes of the book's protagonist Ulrich, an ex-mathematician who has failed to engage with the world around him in a manner that would allow him to possess 'qualities'. It is set in Vienna on the eve of World War I.
The Man Without Qualities brought Musil only mediocre commercial success. Though he was nominated for the Nobel Prize, he felt he did not receive the recognition he deserved. He sometimes expressed annoyance at the success of more famous colleagues like Thomas Mann (or Hermann Broch) who admired his work deeply, and moved by his material poverty, tried to shield him against quotidian worries and encouraged him to further his literary work, even though Musil was initially critical of Mann.
In the early 1920s Musil lived mostly in Berlin. In Vienna Musil was a frequent visitor of Eugenie Schwarzwald's salon (the model of Diotima in The Man Without Qualities). In 1932 The Robert Musil Society was founded in Berlin on the initiative of Thomas Mann. The same year Thomas Mann was asked to name an eminent contemporary novel and he cited exclusively The Man Without Qualities. In 1936 Musil had his first stroke.
The last years of Musil's life were dominated by Nazism and World War II; the Nazis banned his books. He saw early Nazism first-hand while living in Berlin from 1931-1933. In 1938, when Austria became a part of the Third Reich, Musil left for exile in Switzerland, where he died of a stroke on April 15, 1942. Musil collapsed in the middle of his gymnastic exercises and according to legend died with an expression of ironic amusement on his face. He was 61. Only eight people were present at his funeral. His widow cast his ashes into the Rhône. Martha Musil died in 1949 in Rome.
After his death Musil's work was almost forgotten in German speaking countries. His writings began to reappear during the early 1950s. The first translation of The Man Without Qualities in English was published by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins in 1953, 1954 and 1960. An improved translation by Sophie Wilkins and Burton Pike, containing extensive selections from unpublished drafts in the two-volume American edition, appeared in 1995.
Trivia
Robert Musil was not very pleasant company. Adolf Frisé indexed, in his Plädoyer für Robert Musil" (1982) the qualities that were associated with Musil by those who knew him:
Cool, proud, uncommunicative, cold, harsh in his judgement, sharp, a military tone of speaking, vain, elegant, polite, well dressed, distant, official, impeccable, an impressive personality though not a sympathetic or congenial one, proud of his time as officer during the First World War, inaccessible, felt unrecognized, kept people far from him and hence fell into isolation, made slighting rather than positive remarks.
These qualities are usually, in his biographies, associated with two other aspects. The poverty he had to deal with for the bigger part of his life, and his attitude towards other authors of his time. Both come, biographers often state, from his earnestly felt lack of recognition as an important figure in German Literature.
Robert Musil was always in dire need of money: always wondering how he and his wife Martha could live through the next day. In his diary there are regularly complaints that they only have little money left to live on. In a diary-fragment he notes: I am (spiritually and moral) exhausted.
This poverty was not new to Musil and his wife. Ever since he decided to dedicate his life to writing, instead of a promising career at the University, he spent his days in poverty. In Berlin and Vienna admirers founded Musil Societies in order to make his work publicly known and thus enabling him to work on, and perhaps even complete, his one great masterpiece The Man Without Qualities. In his later years in Geneva father Robert Lejeune was the one who, through what Musil described as 'begging', found him the financial means to continue writing. The people who donated money were invariably admiring authors, or philanthropists.
In 1930 Robert Musil is desperate: he is going to be 50 years old, and the first parts of The Man Without Qualities are being published. What is bothering him the most is the discrepancy between his immense efforts and the public attention and recognition. He has been working on The Man without Qualities for ten years now; other author publish four or five books in this time, and do not mind writing for the public. In an interview with Oskar Maurus Fontana he states he wishes to give a "Beiträge zur geistigen Bewältigung der Welt".
The most important reproach to other authors concerns their shallowness. They are not capable, or prepared to be reflexive, that intellectually the time in which they live and about which they should write is far beyond their grasp. Hence their success. This success, in turn, is responsible for the lack of profundity that he reproaches them.
A particularly fine head on a man usually means that he is stupid; particularly deep philosophers are usually shallow thinkers; in literature, talents not much above the average are usually regarded by their contemporaries as geniuses. [Man Without Qualities III, Chapter 14, p. 851]
Thomas Mann is one of those authors. As far as Musil is concerned Mann owes his success to the fact that he is the spokesman of the biased liberal intelligentsia, be it a bit more refined. The person of an intellectual average can relate to the thoughts and words of Mann. When Musil is told that Thomas Mann is, along with others, one of the founders of the Musil Societies, and what these societies do for him he admits he is moved by the gesture of the man whom he has been so unjust to. But the distrust towards successful author remains.
This distrust could be dealt with as envy, were it not that it reflects Musil's poetics. To Musil the writer/poet is a representative for his country. In works of literature, and art in general, what is thought and lived in a country is reflected. German language literature in his time is not equipped for this task. She remains shallow, deals too often with political, aesthetical or ethical fashions, writes only about itself, and thus caters to an irrelevant need.
The disappointment with the lack of recognition and his poverty make Musil a bitter and lonely person. He dies in obscurity in Switzerland, where only a namestone on the cemetery remains of him.
Daß du nicht berühmt bist, ist natürlich; daß du aber nicht genug Leser zum Leben hast, ist schändlich. That one is not famous is only natural: that one has not enough readers to live is a shame!
Timeline
1880 November 6 Robert Musil born in Klagenfurt. Father Engineer Alfred Musil, mother Hermine.
1881-1882 The Musils move to Komotau, Bohemia.
1882-1891 The Musils move to Steyr (Oberöstereich). Robert attends the Volksschule and the first grade of the Realgymnasium.
1891-1892 Moves to Brunn. Attends the Realschule.
1892-1894 Attends the Militär-Unterrealschule in Eisenstadt.
1894-1897 Attends the Militär-Oberrealschule in Mährisch-Weisskirchen (the present-day Hranice in the Czech Republic) During his working with artileries Musil discovers his interest in technique.
1897 Attends the Technische Militärakademie in Vienna.
1898-1901 Quits officer training and starts studies at the Technical University of Brunn. His father had been a professor there since 1890. First literary attempt, and first diary notations.
1901 PhD exams.
1901-1920
1901-1902 Musil enlists in the infantry regiment of Freiherr von Hess Nr. 49 in Brunn
1902-1903 Moves to Stuttgart to work at the University. Works on his first novel Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless
1903-1908 Takes up a philosophy study; his majors are "logic and experimental psychology".
1905 In his diaries he makes the first notes that will eventually lead to Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften.
1906 Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Torless is published. Developed an apparatus to research colour experience in people.
1908 Beiträge zur Beurteilung der Lehren Machs is the title of his doctoral thesis with which he promotes in philosophy, natural science and mathematics. Declines an offer to upgrade his last military rank to an equal civilian rank in favour of writing.
1908-1910 Works in Berlin as an editor for the magazine Pan and on his Vereinigungen and Die Schwärmer.
1911-1914 Librarian at the Technical University of Vienna.
1911 On April 15 Musil marries Martha Marcovaldi. Vereinigungen is published.
1912-1914 Editor for several literary magazines, including Die Neue Rundschau.
1914-1918 During World War I, Musil is officer at the Italian front. Decorated several times.
1916-1917 July-April: publishes the "Soldaten-Zeitung".
1917 On October 22 Alfred Musil ennobled. This nobility is hereditary: thus, Musil will be belong to the nobility to his death (Robert Edler von Musil).
1918 Takes up writing again.
1919-1920 Works for the Information Service of the Austrian foreign department in Vienna.
1920 April-June: lives in Berlin. Meets Ernest Rowohlt who will become, in 1923, his publisher and will remain so.
1920-1922 Adviser for army matters in Vienna.
1921-1931 Works as theater critic, essayist and writer in Vienna. Works on Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften.
1921 The play Die Schwärmer is published.
1923-1929 Is vice-president of Schutzverbandes deutscher Schriftsteller in Östereich. Meets Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who is president of the foundation.
1923 Awarded the Kleist Prize for Die Schwärmer. On December 4 Vinzenz und die Freundin bedeutender Männer is premiered in Berlin.
1924 On January 24 his mother and on October 1 his father die. Awarded the art prize of the city of Vienna. Drei Frauen is published.
1927 Holds a speech on the occasion on the death of Rainer Maria Rilke in Berlin.
1929 April 4 premiere of Die Schwärmer. In spite of protests by Musil, the play is shortened and therefore incomprehensible, according to Musil. In the autumn awarded the Gerhart Hauptman award.
1930 The first two parts of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften are published. In spite of critical support, the financial situation is precarious.
1931-1933 Lives and works in Berlin.
1932 Foundation of a Musil-Gesellschaft by Kurt Glaser in Berlin. The foundation aims to provide Musil with the means necessary to continue working on his novel. At the end of the year the third part of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften is published.
1933 In May Musil leaves Berlin, with his wife Martha. Via Karlsbad and Schloss Pottenstein (Potstejn) they eventually reach Vienna.
1934-1938 After the dismantling of the Berlin Musil-Gesellschaft, a new one is founded in Vienna.
1935 Lecture for the Internationalen Schriftstellerkongress für die Verteidigung der Kultur" in Paris.
1936 Publishes his collection of thoughts, observations and stories Nachlass zu Lebzeiten. Suffers a stroke.
1938 Via Northern Italy Musil and his wife flee to Zürich in August. In Germany and Austria his books are banned.
1939 Moves to Geneva. Musil continues to work on his novel under the worst financial circumstances, and grows lonelier with exile. Thanks to the Zürich vicar Robert Lejeune, Musil receives some financial support, including from the American couple Henry Hall and Barbara Church.
1942 April 15 Musil dies in Geneva. An unmarked grave remains.
1943 Martha Musil publishes the unfinished remains of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften on her own account.
1952-1957 Adolf Frisé publishes the complete works of Robert Musil at Rowohlt.
Bibliography
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
- Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß (The Confusions of Young Torless, 1906), later made into a movie Der junge Törless
- Vereinigungen (1911) (Unions - a collection of two short stories)
- Die Schwärmer (1921)
- Vinzenz und die Freundin bedeutender Männer (1924)
- Drei Frauen (1924) (Three Women - a collection of three short stories)
- Nachlaß zu Lebzeiten (1936) (Posthumous Papers of a Living Author - a collection of short prose pieces)
- Über die Dummheit (1937)
- Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man Without Qualities, 1930, 1933, 1943, published in two volumes)
Further reading
External links
