Bernhard, Thomas - Gita Honegger (essay date Winter 1983)

Gita Honegger (essay date Winter 1983)

SOURCE: “Wittgenstein’s Children: The Writings of Thomas Bernhard,” in Theater, Vol. 15, No. 1, Winter, 1983, pp. 52–62.

[In the following essay, Honegger discusses the influence of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein on Bernhard’s work and philosophy.]

I with the German language
this cloud around me
that I keep as a house
drive through all languages

(Ingeborg Bachmann)

The stupidity of entrusting oneself
to the German language, my dear Doctor—
absurd! And not only the German language,
I think, but still the German language above
all. The stupidity resulting from German,
I think. … …”

(from Thomas Bernhard’s “Gargoyles”)

When I left Austria twenty years ago I thought that I could also escape my native language with all its historical resonances and traps as well as the stock temperament and mentality locked forever in its syntax...

[The entire page is 4939 words long]

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