Robert Walser (writer)

Robert Walser (15 April 1878 – 25 December 1956) was a German language Swiss writer. He additionally worked as a copyist, an inventor's assistant, a butler, and in various other low-paying trades. Despite marginal early success in his literary career, the popularity of his work gradually diminished over the second and third decades of the 20th century, making it increasingly difficult for him to support himself through writing. He eventually had a nervous breakdown and spent the remainder of his life in sanatoriums.

Life and work

1878–1897

Walser was born into a family with many children. His brother Karl Walser became a well-known stage designer and painter. Walser grew up in Biel, Switzerland, on the language border between the German- and French-speaking regions of Switzerland, and grew up speaking both languages. He attended primary school and progymnasium, which he had to leave before the final exam when his family could no longer bear the cost. From his early years on, he was an enthusiastic theatre-goer; his favourite play was ''The Robbers'' by Friedrich Schiller. There is a watercolor painting that shows Walser as Karl Moor, the protagonist of that play.

From 1892 to 1895, Walser served an apprenticeship at the Bernischer Kantonalbank in Biel. Afterwards he worked for a short time in Basel. Walser's mother, who was "emotionally disturbed", died in 1894 after being under medical care for a long period. In 1895, Walser went to Stuttgart where his brother Karl lived. He was an office worker at the Deutsche Verlagsanstalt and at the Cotta'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung; he also tried, without success, to become an actor. On foot, he returned to Switzerland where he registered in 1896 as a Zürich resident. In the following years, he often worked as a "Kommis", an office clerk, but irregularly and in many different places. As a result, he was one of the first Swiss writers to introduce into literature a description of the life of a salaried employee.

1898–1912

In 1898, the influential critic Joseph Victor Widmann published a series of poems by Walser in the Bernese newspaper ''Der Bund''. This came to the attention of Franz Blei, and he introduced Walser to the Art Nouveau people around the magazine '' Die Insel'', including Frank Wedekind, Max Dauthendey and Otto Julius Bierbaum. Numerous short stories and poems by Walser appeared in ''Die Insel.''

Until 1905, Walser lived mainly in Zürich, though he often changed lodgings and also lived for a time in Thun, Solothurn, Winterthur and Munich. In 1903, he fulfilled his military service obligation and, beginning that summer, was the "aide" of an engineer and inventor in Wädenswil near Zürich. This episode became the basis of his 1908 novel ''Der Gehülfe'' (''The Assistant''). In 1904, his first book, ''Fritz Kochers Aufsätze'' (Fritz Kocher's Essays), appeared in the ''Insel Verlag'', with eleven illustrations by his brother Karl.

At the end of 1905 he attended a course in order to become a servant at the castle of Dambrau in Upper Silesia. The theme of serving would characterize his work in the following years, especially in the novel '' Jakob von Gunten'' (1909). In 1905, he went to live in Berlin, where his brother Karl Walser, who was working as a theater painter, introduced him to other figures in literature, publishing, and the theater. Occasionally, Walser worked as secretary for the artists' corporation Berliner Secession.

In Berlin, Walser wrote the novels '' The Tanners'' (''Geschwister Tanner''), '' The Assistant'' (''Der Gehülfe'') and ''Jakob von Gunten''. They were issued by the publishing house of Bruno Cassirer, where Christian Morgenstern worked as editor. Apart from the novels, he wrote many short stories, sketching popular bars from the point of view of a poor "flaneur" in a very playful and subjective language. There was a very positive echo to his writings. Robert Musil and Kurt Tucholsky, among others, stated their admiration for Walser's prose, and authors like Hermann Hesse and Franz Kafka counted him among their favorite writers.

Walser published numerous short stories in newspapers and magazines, many for instance in the ''Schaubühne.'' They became his trademark. The larger part of his work is composed of short stories – literary sketches that elude a ready categorization. Selections of these short stories were published in the volumes ''Aufsätze'' (1913) and ''Geschichten'' (1914).

1913–1929

In 1913, Walser returned to Switzerland. He lived for a short time with his sister Lisa in the mental home in Bellelay, where she worked as a teacher. There, he got to know Frieda Mermet, a washer-woman with whom he developed a close friendship. After a short stay with his father in Biel, he went to live in a mansard in the Biel hotel ''Blaues Kreuz''. In 1914, his father died.

In Biel, Walser wrote a number of shorter stories that appeared in newspapers and magazines in Germany and Switzerland and selections of which were published in ''Der Spaziergang'' (1917), ''Prosastücke'' (1917), ''Poetenleben'' (1918), ''Seeland'' (1919) and ''Die Rose'' (1925). Walser, who had always been an enthusiastic wanderer, began to take extended walks, often by night. In his stories from that period, texts written from the point of view of a wanderer walking through unfamiliar neighborhoods alternate with playful essays on writers and artists.

During World War I, Walser repeatedly had to go into military service. At the end of 1916, his brother Ernst died after a time of mental illness in the Waldau mental home. In 1919, Walser's brother Hermann, geography professor in Bern, committed suicide. Walser himself became isolated in that time, when there was almost no communication with Germany because of the war. Even though he worked hard, he could barely support himself as a freelance writer. At the beginning of 1921, he moved to Bern in order to work at the public record office. He often changed lodgings and lived a very solitary life.

During his time in Bern, Walser's style became more radical. In a more and more condensed form, he wrote "micrograms" ("Mikrogramme"), called thus because of his minuscule pencil hand that is very difficult to decipher. He wrote poems, prose, dramolettes and novels, including '' The Robber'' (''Der Räuber''). In these texts, his playful, subjective style moved toward a higher abstraction. Many texts of that time work on multiple levels – they can be read as naive-playful feuilletons or as highly complex montages full of allusions. Walser absorbed influences from serious literature as well as from formula fiction and retold, for example, the plot of a pulp novel in a way that the original (the title of which he never revealed) was unrecognizable. Much of his work was written during these very productive years in Bern.

1929–1956

In the beginning of 1929, Walser, who had had anxieties and hallucinations for quite some time, went to the Bernese mental home Waldau, after a mental breakdown, at his sister Fani's urging. In his medical records it says: "The patient confessed hearing voices." Therefore, this can hardly be called a voluntary commitment. He was eventually diagnosed with catatonic schizophrenia. While he was in the mental home, his state of mind quickly returned to normal, and he went on writing and publishing. More and more, he used the way of writing he called the "pencil method": he wrote poems and prose in a diminutive Sütterlin hand, the letters of which measured about a millimeter of height by the end of that very productive phase. Werner Morlang and Bernhard Echte were the first ones who attempted to decipher these writings. In the 1990s, they published a six-volume edition, ''Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet'' ('From the Pencil Zone'). Only when Walser was, against his will, moved to the sanatorium of Herisau in his home canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden, did he quit writing, later telling Carl Seelig, "I am not here to write, but to be mad."

In 1936, his admirer Carl Seelig began to visit him. He later wrote a book, ''Wanderungen mit Robert Walser'', about their talks. Seelig tried to revive interest in Walser's work by re-issuing some of his writings. After the death of Walser's brother Karl in 1943 and of his sister Lisa in 1944, Seelig became Walser's legal guardian. Though free of outward signs of mental illness for a long time, Walser was crotchety and repeatedly refused to leave the sanatorium.

In 1955, Walser's novella '' The Walk'' (''Der Spaziergang'') was translated into English by Christopher Middleton; it was the first English translation of his writing and the only one that would appear during his lifetime. Upon learning of Middleton's translation, Walser, who had fallen out of the public eye, responded by musing "Well, look at that."

Walser enjoyed long walks alone. On 25 December 1956 he was found, dead of a heart attack, in a field of snow near the asylum. The photographs of the dead Walser in the snow are reminiscent of a similar image of a dead man in the snow in his first novel, ''Geschwister Tanner''.

Writings and reception

Today, Walser's texts, completely re-edited since the 1970s, are regarded as among the most important writings of literary modernism. In his writing, he made use of elements of Swiss German in a charming and original manner, while very personal observations are interwoven with ''texts about texts''; that is, with contemplations and variations of other literary works, in which Walser often mixes pulp fiction with high literature. Walser has been regarded as the missing link between Heinrich von Kleist and Franz Kafka. As writes Susan Sontag, "at the time f Walser's writing it was more likely to be Kafka ho was understoodthrough the prism of Walser." For example, Robert Musil once referred to Kafka's work as "a peculiar case of the Walser type."

Walser was admired early on by Kafka and writers such as Hermann Hesse, Stefan Zweig, and Walter Benjamin, and was in fact better known during his lifetime than Kafka or Benjamin were known in theirs. He never belonged to a literary school or group, perhaps with the exception of the circle around the magazine ''Die Insel'' in his youth, but was a notable and often published writer before World War I and into the 1920s. After the second half of the latter decade, he was rapidly forgotten, in spite of Carl Seelig's editions, which appeared almost exclusively in Switzerland but received little attention.

Walser was rediscovered only in the 1970s, even though famous German writers such as Christian Morgenstern, Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin, Thomas Bernhard and Hermann Hesse were among his great admirers. Since then, almost all his writings have become accessible through an extensive republication of his entire body of work. He has exerted a considerable influence on various contemporary German writers, including Ror Wolf, Peter Handke, W. G. Sebald, and Max Goldt. In 1967, Walser's piece 'Kleist in Thun' was published in 0 to 9 magazine. A revival of interest in his work arose when, in the late 20th century and early 2000s, his writings from "the Pencil Zone", also known as ''Bleistiftgebiet'' or "the Microscripts", which had been written in a coded, microscopically tiny hand using a form of Kurrent script on scraps of paper collected while in a Waldau sanatorium, were finally deciphered, translated, and published.Rivka Galchen">

In 2004, Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas published a novel entitled ''Doctor Pasavento'' about Walser, his stay on Herisau and the wish to disappear. In 2007, Serbian writer Vojislav V. Jovanović published a book of prose named ''Story for Robert Walser'' inspired by the life and work of Robert Walser. In 2012, ''A Little Ramble: In the Spirit of Robert Walser'', a series of artistic responses to Walser's work was published, including work by Moyra Davey, Thomas Schütte, Tacita Dean and Mark Wallinger.

Robert Walser Center

The Robert Walser Center, which was officially established in Bern, Switzerland, in 2009, is dedicated to Robert Walser and the first patron of Walser's work and legacy, Carl Seelig. Its purpose is to promulgate Walser's life and work as well as to facilitate scholarly research. The center is open to both experts and the general public and includes an extensive archive, a research library, temporary exhibition space, and two rooms with several workstations are also available. The Center furthermore develops and organizes exhibitions, events, conferences, workshops, publications, and special editions. The translation of Robert Walser's works, which the Center both encourages and supports, also represents a key focus. In order to fully meet its objectives and responsibilities as a center of excellence, it often collaborates on certain projects with local, national, and international partners as well as universities, schools, theaters, museums, archives, translators, editors, and publishers.

Works

German

*''Der Teich'', 1902, verse drama
*''Schneewittchen'', 1901, verse drama
*''Fritz Kochers Aufsätze'', 1904
*'' Geschwister Tanner'', 1907
*'' Der Gehülfe'', 1908
*''Poetenleben'', 1908
*'' Jakob von Gunten'', 1909
*''Gedichte'', 1909
*''Aufsätze'', 1913
*Geschichten, 1914
*''Kleine Dichtungen'', 1915
*''Prosastücke'', 1917
*''Der Spaziergang'', 1917
*''Kleine Prosa'', 1917
*''Poetenleben'', 1917
*''Tobold''-Roman, 1918
*''Komödie'', 1919
*''Seeland'', 1920
*''Theodor''-Roman, 1921
*''Die Rose'', 1925
*'' Der Räuber'', 1925 (published 1978)
*''Felix-Szenen'', 1925
*''Große Welt, kleine Welt'', 1937
*''Dichterbildnisse'', 1947
*''Dichtungen in Prosa'', 1953
*''Robert Walser – Briefe'', 1979
*''Sämtliche Werke in Einzelausgaben''. 20 Bde. Hg. v. Jochen Greven. Zürich, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 1985-1986
*''Geschichten'', 1985
*''Der Spaziergang. Prosastücke und Kleine Prosa.'', 1985
*''Aufsätze'', 1985
*''Bedenkliche Geschichten. Prosa aus der Berliner Zeit 1906–1912'', 1985
*''Träumen. Prosa aus der Bieler Zeit 1913–1920'', 1985
*''Die Gedichte'', 1986
*''Komödie. Märchenspiele und szenische Dichtung'', 1986
*''Wenn Schwache sich für stark halten. Prosa aus der Berner Zeit 1921–1925'', 1986
*''Zarte Zeilen. Prosa aus der Berner Zeit 1926'', 1986
*''Es war einmal. Prosa aus der Berner Zeit 1927–1928'', 1986
*''Für die Katz. Prosa aus der Berner Zeit 1928–1933'', 1986
*''Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet Band 1. Mikrogramme 1924/25.'' Hg. v. Bernhard Echte u. Werner Morlang i. A. des Robert Walser-Archivs der Carl Seelig-Stiftung, Zürich. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 1985–2000
*''Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet Band 2. Mikrogramme 1924/25.'' Hg. v. Bernhard Echte u. Werner Morlang i. A. des Robert Walser-Archivs der Carl Seelig-Stiftung, Zürich. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 1985–2000
*''Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet Band 3. Räuber-Roman, Felix-Szenen.'' Hg. v. Bernhard Echte u. Werner Morlang i. A. des Robert Walser-Archivs der Carl Seelig-Stiftung, Zürich. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 1985–2000
*''Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet Band 4. Mikrogramme 1926/27.'' Hg. v. Bernhard Echte u. Werner Morlang i. A. des Robert Walser-Archivs der Carl Seelig-Stiftung, Zürich. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 1985–2000
*''Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet Band 5. Mikrogramme 1925/33.'' Hg. v. Bernhard Echte u. Werner Morlang i. A. des Robert Walser-Archivs der Carl Seelig-Stiftung, Zürich. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 1985–2000
*''Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet Band 6. Mikrogramme 1925/33.'' Hg. v. Bernhard Echte u. Werner Morlang i. A. des Robert Walser-Archivs der Carl Seelig-Stiftung, Zürich. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 1985–2000
*''Unsere Stadt. Texte über Biel.'' 2002
*''Feuer. Unbekannte Prosa und Gedichte.'' 2003
* ''Tiefer Winter. Geschichten von der Weihnacht und vom Schneien''. Hg. v. Margit Gigerl, Livia Knüsel u. Reto Sorg. Frankfurt: Insel Taschenbuch Verlag 2007 (it; 3326),
*''Kritische Robert Walser-Ausgabe. Kritische Ausgabe sämtlicher Drucke und Manuskripte.'' Hg. v. Wolfram Groddeck, Barbara von Reibnitz u.a. Basel, Frankfurt am Main: Stroemfeld, Schwabe 2008
*''Briefe. Berner Ausgabe''. Hg. v. Lucas Marco Gisi, Reto Sorg, Peter Stocker u. Peter Utz. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag 2018

English translations

*''Jakob von Gunten'' (University of Texas Press, 1970; New York Review Books Classics, 1999), translated by Christopher Middleton,
*''Selected Stories'' (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1982; New York Review Books Classics, 2002), translated by Christopher Middleton,
*''Robert Walser Rediscovered: Stories, Fairy-Tale Plays, & Critical Response Including the Anti-Fairy Tales, Cinderella & Snow White'' (University Press of New England, 1985)
*''Masquerade and Other Stories'' (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), translated by Susan Bernofsky,
*''The Robber'' (University of Nebraska Press, 2000), translated by Susan Bernofsky,
*''Speaking to the Rose: Writings, 1912–1932'' (University of Nebraska Press, 2005), translated by Christopher Middleton,
*''The Assistant'' ( New Directions, 2007), translated by Susan Bernofsky,
*''The Tanners'' ( New Directions, 2009), translated by Susan Bernofsky,
*''Microscripts'' ( New Directions, 2010), translated by Susan Bernofsky,
*''Answer to an Inquiry'' (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010), translated by Paul North, with drawings by Friese Undine,
*''Berlin Stories'' (New York Review Books Classics, 2012), translated by Susan Bernofsky,
*''The Walk'' ( New Directions, 2012), translated by Christopher Middleton with Susan Bernofsky,
*''Thirty Poems'' ( New Directions, 2012), translated by Christopher Middleton,
* ''Oppressive Light: Selected Poems by Robert Walser'' ( Black Lawrence Press/ Dzanc Books, New York, 2012), edited and translated by Daniele Pantano,
*''A Little Ramble: In the Spirit of Robert Walser'' ( New Directions, 2012), translated by Susan Bernofsky with Christopher Middleton and Tom Whalen
* ''A Schoolboy's Diary'' (New York Review Books Classics, 2013), translated by Damion Searls, introduction by Ben Lerner,
* ''Looking at Pictures'' (Christine Burgin / New Directions, 2015), translated by Susan Bernofsky with Lydia Davis and Christopher Middleton,
* ''Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories'' (New York Review Books Classics, 2016), translated by Tom Whalen, with Nicole Kongeter and Annette Wiesner, afterword by Tom Whalen,
*''Little Snow Landscape'' (New York Review Books, 2021), trans. Tom Whalen
* ''Robert Walser: The Poems'' (Seagull Books, 2022), translated by Daniele Pantano
* ''My Heart Has So Many Flaws: Early Poems'' (Sublunary Editions, 2024), translated by Kristofor Minta

Plays

*''Robert Walser – mikrogramme – das kleine welttheater'', director: Christian Bertram, stage: Max Dudler, music: Hans Peter Kuhn, début performance 14 April 2005 Berlin; readings, films and podium discussion with corollary progra
www.mikrogramme.deInstitute Benjamenta
director: Gökçen Ergene
*''Fairy Tales: Dramolettes'' ( New Directions, 2015), translated by James Reidel and Daniele Pantano, with a preface by Reto Sorg,
*''Comedies'' (Seagull Books, 2018), translated by Daniele Pantano and James Reidel, with a preface by Reto Sorg,

Movies

*''Jakob von Gunten'', director: Peter Lilienthal, script: Ror Wolf and Peter Lilienthal, 1971
*''Der Gehülfe'', director: Thomas Koerfer, 1975
*''Der Vormund und sein Dichter'', direction and script: Percy Adlon, 1978 (free picturization of Seelig's ''Wanderungen mit Robert Walser'')
*''Robert Walser (1974–1978)'', direction and script: HHK Schoenherr
*''Waldi'', direction and script: Reinhard Kahn, Michael Leiner (after the story ''Der Wald''), 1980
*''The Comb'', directors: Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay (i.e. Brothers Quay), 1990
*''Brentano'', director: Romeo Castellucci, with Paolo Tonti as Brentano, 1995
*'' Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life'', directors: Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay (i.e. Brothers Quay) with Mark Rylance as Jakob von Gunten, 1995
*''Blanche Neige'', directed by Rudolph Straub, music by Giovanna Marini, 1999
de Neve''
director: João César Monteiro, 2000
*''All This Can Happen'', directors: Siobhan Davies, David Hinton, 2012

Opera

*'' Schneewittchen'', 1998, by Heinz Holliger

References

Further reading

In English

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In German

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External links

In English

Robert Walser Center
(official site of the Robert Walser archive and society in Bern, with information, documentation, and resources about the writer's life and work)
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"A Celebration of the Work of Swiss Writer Robert Walser
on KCRW's ''Bookworm''
Swiss Literary Archive


review of A Schoolboy's Diary at The Millions

"A Prose Piece for Your Gaps"
Review of A Schoolboy's Diary at Open Letters Monthly

In German

Robert Walser CenterRobert Walser-Pfad, HerisauKritische Walser AusgabeRobert Walser Preis

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walser, Robert
1878 births
1956 deaths
20th-century Swiss writers
20th-century dramatists and playwrights
Swiss male dramatists and playwrights
Modernism
Modernist writers
People from Biel/Bienne
People with schizophrenia
Swiss dramatists and playwrights
Swiss male writers
20th-century Swiss male writers
Swiss people with disabilities