LITERATURE AND POLITICS
Selected Writings
Selected Writings
Paperback
Extent: 564 pages
Trim: 12.4 x 19.5 cm
ISBN: 9781916809611
Price: £27
“Politics is will and not truth. A very primitive formulation, but rich in consequences.”
Robert Musil was keenly aware of literature’s vulnerability to what he called “the over-reach and encroachment of politics”, but he was also an acute observer of the ways in which literature and politics interact. Literature and Politics is an indispensable collection of his writings on this theme, many of which were prepared in the shadow of the Nazis’ consolidation of power in Germany and then in Musil’s native Austria.
In essays, addresses, aphorisms, and unpublished notes on current events, Musil charted the increasing dangers posed to artists and intellectuals by projects of ideological conscription, as well as the broader threats posed by nationalism and other extreme forms of collectivism. His political thinking was unfailingly supple and nuanced, but at its heart was a passionate belief in the rich and irreducible nature of individual creative work as the bulwark of a free, ethical, and pluralistic society. Introduced and contextualised by exceptionally insightful essays by Genese Grill and Klaus Amann, this volume provides an invaluable new perspective on one of twentieth-century Europe’s outstanding writers.
Robert Musil was keenly aware of literature’s vulnerability to what he called “the over-reach and encroachment of politics”, but he was also an acute observer of the ways in which literature and politics interact. Literature and Politics is an indispensable collection of his writings on this theme, many of which were prepared in the shadow of the Nazis’ consolidation of power in Germany and then in Musil’s native Austria.
In essays, addresses, aphorisms, and unpublished notes on current events, Musil charted the increasing dangers posed to artists and intellectuals by projects of ideological conscription, as well as the broader threats posed by nationalism and other extreme forms of collectivism. His political thinking was unfailingly supple and nuanced, but at its heart was a passionate belief in the rich and irreducible nature of individual creative work as the bulwark of a free, ethical, and pluralistic society. Introduced and contextualised by exceptionally insightful essays by Genese Grill and Klaus Amann, this volume provides an invaluable new perspective on one of twentieth-century Europe’s outstanding writers.
ROBERT MUSIL (1880–1942) was a novelist, dramatist, and philosopher. He was the author of the widely celebrated novel The Man Without Qualities.