The Artist As A Tragic Figure? : Germany

Alongside these currents, a few loners established themselves as the preeminent writers of their time. The most important works of Arno Schmidt were “Scenes from the Life of a Faun”, 1953; “Das Steinerne Herz”, 1956; “Kiihe in Halbtrauer”, 1964; “Zettels Traum”, 1970; and “Evening Edged in Gold”, 1975. Outstanding works by the Austrian Thomas Bernhard include “Frost”, 1963; “Gargoyles”, 1956; “The Limeworks”, 1970; “Die Ursache”, 1975; “Old Masters”, 1985; and “Ausloschung. Ein Zerfall”, 1986. The works of these two writers represent a serious portrayal, interspersed with irony, of the existence of the artist, the “man of intellect” in a world of indifference and unimaginativeness. Their skepticism honed on Schopenhauer sharpened their eye for the comic and the tragic in every human existence.

The Austrian Peter Handke, who was highly regarded at the end of the 1960s, was one of the most influential poets in Germany during the first decade of his productivity (”Offending the Audience”, 1966; “Kaspar”, 1968; “The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick”, 1970; “A Sorrow Beyond Dreams”, 1972; “A Moment of True Feeling”, 1975). Since the beginning of the 1970s, his literary endeavors have become increasingly solipsistic (”Slow Homecoming”, 1979; “Die Abwesenheit”, 1987; “Mein Jahr in der Niemands-bucht”, 1994).