Title

Thomas Bernhard's `Frost'and Adalbert Stifter: Literature, Legacy, and National Identity in the Early Austrian Second Republic

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-2005

Journal Title

German Studies Review

Volume

28

Issue

1

Abstract

Thomas Bernhard's Frost combines allusions to Adalbert Stifter's Der Nachsommer with references to horrific traces of World War II in the Alpine landscape of the young Austrian Second Republic. Thus Bernhard's text can be read as his aesthetic participation in the discourse on the meaning of postwar Austrian national identity. Whereas identification with Habsburg cultural achievement, such as Stifter's work, allowed Austrians to repress their involvement with Nazism and the war, Bernhard adapted Stifter's Bildungsroman to present the war as an ineradicable legacy that is inseparable from Austrian identity.

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