Robert Musil

Politics is will and not truth. A very primitive formulation, but rich in consequences. Robert Musil was keenly aware of literature's vulnerability to what he called "the over-reach and encroachment of politics", but he was also an acute observer of the ways in which literature and politics interact. Literature and Politics presents Musil's writings on the relationship between literature and...

"We do not have too much intellect and too little soul, but too little precision in matters of the soul."—Robert Musil Best known as the author of the novel The Man without Qualities, Robert Musil wrote these essays in Vienna and Berlin between 1911 and 1937. Offering a perspective on modern society and intellectual life, they are concerned with the...