Austrian Literature - Origin and Background

Origin and Background

There are and have been many tries to work out a complete definition of Austrian literature. Something most people can agree on is that there are certain differences and distinctive motives common in this literature which make it stand apart from other literary traditions.

From the 19th century onward, Austria contributed some of the greatest names in modern literature. It was the home of novelists / short-story writers Adalbert Stifter, Arthur Schnitzler, Franz Werfel, Stefan Zweig, Franz Kafka, Thomas Bernhard, Joseph Roth, or Robert Musil, of poets Georg Trakl, Rose Ausländer, Franz Grillparzer, Rainer Maria Rilke or Paul Celan. Famous contemporary playwrights and novelists are Elfriede Jelinek and Peter Handke, well-known essayists are Robert Menasse and Karl-Markus Gauß. Yet, it is hard to speak of an Austrian literature prior to that period. In the early 18th century, Lady Mary Wortly Montague, whilst visiting Vienna, was stunned to meet no writers at all. For all of Austria's contributions to architecture, and having one of the most hallowed musical traditions in Europe, no Austrian literature made it to the classical canon until the 19th century.

A number of reasons can be given. Firstly, the arts were the preserve of the imperial court, who saw culture as a political tool, as propaganda. Fine baroque palaces, imperial portraits and commissions of music could all work very well to this aim, but literature was deemed less suitable, and thus not encouraged. Secondly was the late emergence of a German literature; whilst much as published in the German language, little had the calibre to become 'classic' until the late 18th century, when Goethe and Schiller began writing. In Austria, the imperial state also censored all books mercilessly; The Sorrows of Young Werther, Goethe's novel depicting a young man's ecstatic love and suicide, spawned a string of copyat suicides across Germany, and many states banned the work, but Austrian authorities also banned Goethe's entire opus. It came mostly from Empress Maria Theresa's 'Chastity Commission', intended to uphold public morals, but it had the effect not only of creating a facade of decency, but a stunted intellectual front. But perhaps the greatest reason for Austria's late literary fruition was its cultural mindset. According to the cultural historian Carl Emil Schorske, 'profoundly Catholic, it was a deeply sensuous, plastic culture'. The outlook of a leisured aristocracy, it was copied by the lower classes. This mentality was not necessarily bad; the emphasis on beauty and fantasy was integral to establishing the imperial capital of Vienna, and it made Vienna the greatest centre of music in Europe. But it was not the best ground for literary experiment. Nevertheless, the liberalisation of Austria in the late 19th century created a more dynamic cliamte for writing, which soon produced a flowering.

This article tries to provide some definitions which together may give a better understanding of authors and literature in Austria and its territorial predecessors, referring to all published works as well as those with classic status.