Hermann Broch

Paul Michael Lützeler (Washington University St. Louis)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Hermann Broch is considered one of the leading European novelists of the first part of the 20th century: a contemporary of James Joyce (with whom he was often compared), of André Gide, Thomas Mann and Robert Musil. These authors revolutionized the modern novel, driven by the ambition to use the genre of the novel as an instrument of knowledge, as a work of art that would reach as Broch indicated an intellectual level comparable to that of theoretical physics since Einstein. Broch’s two major novels (

The Sleepwalkers

and

The Death of Virgil

) demonstrate this ambition. Their narrative complexity is unmatched by any other novel of the time: psychological, aesthetic, philosophical, art historical, sociological, political, and theological insights are combined and result in most demanding…

2597 words

Citation: Lützeler, Paul Michael. "Hermann Broch". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 September 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5478, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5478 Hermann Broch 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.