Review of “Der fürchterliche Lärm der Stummheit”: Zur Politik des Hörbaren bei Hermann Broch by Victoria Weidemann

Document Type

Review

Publication Date

Winter 2018

Department 1

German

Abstract

In her study "Der fürchterliche Lärm der Stummheit": Zur Politik des Hörbaren bei Hermann Broch, Victoria Weidemann delivers a compelling case for the role of sound across the oeuvre of the celebrated Austrian modernist. Powered by thorough and lucid close readings that draw primarily—though not exclusively—from Broch's novels Der Tod des Vergils and Die Verzauberung, Weidemann highlights the ubiquity of sound as a key signifier of the tension "zwischen literarischer Aktivität und politischer Realität" (12) at the center of each work. Departing from careful analysis of the primary literary texts, Weidemann asserts that Broch's literary transposition of acoustic stimuli is a self-conscious tactic designed to inspire political modes of reading to combat the mass acoustic propaganda of fascism. [excerpt]

DOI

10.1353/oas.2018.0066

Required Publisher's Statement

This article was originally published by the University of Nebraska Press.

This item is not available in The Cupola.

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