Non-Contemporaneity of the Contemporaneous: Broch's Novel Die Verzauberung

Summary

HERMANN BROCH'S NOVEL Die Verzauberung is frequently interpreted as an antifascist work and many critics highlight its political dimensions. My purpose in this article is to reemphasize the religious dimensions of the novel. However, although other critics either see the mystical level of the novel as promising a new religiosity or reject Broch's mysticism as too easily confused with Nazi ideology, I will consider a different aspect of the religious dimensions of the novel. In my view, Broch's plan of a trilogy of novels centered on the portrayal of religious experience using the concept of the “Ungleichzeitigkeit des Gleichzeitigen,” a concept developed by Ernst Bloch in his work Erbschaft dieser Zeit (1935). A number of figures and rituals described in the novel represent certain historical stages of European religious developments; Broch's purpose was to demonstrate genuine stages of religious beliefs and practices in the past and their contemporary ineffectiveness in juxtaposition to the pseudoreligious demagoguery of a protofascist figure such as Marius Ratti. While preparing for the work on Die Verzauberung, Broch wrote to his publisher Daniel Brody on October 19, 1934, answering his own question whether literature in his time still satisfied a social need:

Antwort: Ja. Und zwar ist es in einer Zeit, die nicht und schon längst nicht mehr zu “glauben” und zu philosophieren, d.h. religiös zu denken vermag, deren tiefstes Bedürfnis jedoch nach Glauben-können geht und die jedes Surrogat dafür nimmt, ist es in und für eine solche Zeit von äußerster Notwendigkeit, daß man ihr die Möglichkeit des Glaubensaktes, die Entwicklung des Supranaturalen aus dem irrationalen Seelengrund beispielhaft an wirklichen Menschen vor Augen führe. Das ergibt natürlich weder “katholische,” noch “protestantische,” noch “jüdische” Dichtung, sondern ist im Gegenteil von jedweder, also auch von jeder Glaubensdogmatik frei. (KW13/1,300)