Turning to and away from the Highest Canonical Authority: A Reexamination of Thomas Bernhard’s Reception of Adalbert Stifter in Frost

Abstract

In the aftermath of World War II, both Austria and Germany drew on their most canonical classical authors for didactic and public relations goals. In the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, Goethe was the central cultural figure utilized for these purposes, while in Austria Stifter played a leading role. This essay begins by contrasting these respective national instrumentalizations of cultural patrimony. The impact of Stifter as an iconic Austrian author drawn upon in the wake of the war by the country’s educational and cultural institutions is evident in the works of Thomas Bernhard, particularly in his first novel, Frost . This essay reevaluates the impact of Stifter’s most canonical novel, Der Nachsommer , on Frost from the perspective of Stifter reception in the immediate postwar years and examines Bernhard’s seemingly polemic treatment of Stifter in his novel Alte Meister in this broader context of Bernhard’s Stifter reception.