THOMAS BERNHARDS UNVERÖFFENTLICHTES ROMANPROJEKT 'SCHWARZACH ST. VEIT'. DAS KONVOLUT, DIE FASSUNGEN UND IHRE DEUTUNG

The unfinished novel Schwarzach St. Veit represents a turning point in the early career of Thomas Bernhard at the end of the 1950s, a period in which the young author (by then only known as a lyric poet) was experimenting with several literary genres (poetry, drama, prose). However, Bernhard’s first attempt in the novelistic genre is not a single text. It consists of a series prose texts in several preliminary and revised stages, among which four main versions stand out (Jakob Zischek, Hufnagl, Schwarzach St. Veit and Der Wald auf der Straße). All four are finished versions, which – Jakob Zischek excepted – Bernhard offered to different publishers between 1960 and 1961, but all were rejected. Only in 1989, In der Höhe. Rettungsversuch, Unsinn – a revised version of Der Wald auf der Straße – was eventually published, thus becoming the fifth main text and in a way the final version of the whole Schwarzach-project. The present dissertation contains, in as much detail as possible, a description of the unpublished novel-project, regarding both philological aspects and thematic content. The manuscripts are precisely catalogued and analysed in order to better understand the structure of the archival materials and the relation between several drafts and final versions. This allows for a more thorough appreciation of Bernhard’s working method at a time when he was still developing his personal style, often rewriting passages several times, excising passages and starting over. The individual analyses of the main versions bring to light similarities and interferences with other works of the same period, as well as typical motifs, that would characterise Bernhard’s later output.