In memoriam: Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler (May 20, 1942 - September 7, 2008)

by Fatima Naqvi

A few days after Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler's unexpected death of a pulmonary embolism, one thing has become clear in Vienna: here, as in the rest of Austria, all literary and cultural roads lead to him. In the Department of German at the University of Vienna, of which Professor Schmidt-Dengler was the chair, one assistant professor spoke of an "implosion"; co-workers and administrators stare at each other wordlessly or pass one another with downcast eyes. The silence in the university halls stands in inverse proportion to the discourse generated by and around the renowned literary critic in the media. It has rushed to honor the telegenic and congenial professor, a frequent guest on public radio and television channels. In the many newspaper obituaries and internet postings that have appeared since Sunday, people have repeatedly stressed Schmidt-Dengler's seminal role in the cultural landscape of the post-war period. Since the Zagreb-born Germanist began his career at the university in the mid-sixties, he has revolutionized the way Austrians think about their culture. In expanding their view of the canon, he has exerted an influence beyond the country's borders. Indeed, the most recent prize he garnered was the "Preis der Kritik," or "Criticism Prize," at the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair. Ninety-nine bottles of wine and a collected edition of Heinrich Heine were to go to Schmidt-Dengler for his cultural mediation'a maverick's books for a fellow non-conformist.

Schmidt-Dengler was a marked proponent of experimental Austrian writers in the 1960s, long before the works of the Wiener Gruppe or Vienna Group (Friedrich Achleitner, Konrad Bayer, Gerhard Rühm, Oswald Wiener) found general acceptance. He was also among the first to champion the works of Thomas Bernhard, and has been the driving force behind the twenty-two volume critical edition of the author that is coming out with the well-regarded publishing house Suhrkamp. Schmidt-Dengler's twenty-year long reflection on the conditions and characteristics of the author's oeuvre are collected in the influential volume Der Übertreibungskünstler: Studien zu Thomas Bernhard (The Exaggeration Artist: Studies to Thomas Bernhard, 1986). In this book, Schmidt-Dengler sought to confront the polemical discourse Bernhard generated during the last years of his life with a more nuanced study of Bernhard's hyperbolic rhetoric. Schmidt-Dengler also contextualized Bernhard's work within Austrian literary traditions, outlining affiliations with the authors Heimito von Doderer, Ernst Jandl, and Peter Handke, all of whom were also among Schmidt-Dengler's scholarly concerns. (In one charming anecdote, Schmidt-Dengler liked to tell of an encounter with Thomas Bernhard: Bernhard approached Schmidt-Dengler in the Café Bräunerhof, where Bernhard was a regular. Schmidt-Dengler, likewise already well known through his media presence, was ready for any question. Asked, somewhat disappointingly, whether the newspaper lying next to him was free, Schmidt-Dengler, in his own words, demonstrated his "familiarity with Bernhard's oeuvre and answered with the title of one of Bernhard's prose works: "Yes"." )

I suspect that Schmidt-Dengler's particular esteem for Bernhard's themes and style had less to do with any natural proclivity for superlatives or exaggeration - in his book, Schmidt-Dengler is at pains to deconstruct the binary schemas haunting Bernhard's prose -than with the Austrian professor's fascination with the various pedagogues and mentors that form a guiding thread through Bernhard's works. Schmidt-Dengler was interested in the educators who remain critical of the institutions to which they are beholden and who manage to convey this analytical, some would say: rebellious, spirit to the young people under their tutelage. Unsurprisingly, Schmidt-Dengler was one of the most outspoken critics of his university's administration, reminding readers of the daily paper Der Standard that changing the names of departments or merging institutes has little to do with educational improvement and everything to do with budgetary shortcuts. Many of those readers were themselves at some point students of the famed professor, visiting his lectures on Austrian literature after 1945.

Professor Schmidt-Dengler returned the admiration students felt for him. In an essay published only this past weekend, he lauded students - continuing engagement with literature and spoke of the necessary provocation that challenging texts pose. The closing paragraph of the article, entitled "Und sie können es doch" ("And They Are Capable of Doing It"), now reads like a resumé of the four decades Schmidt-Dengler spent in classrooms and lecture halls in Vienna, Pisa, Naples, Klagenfurt, Salzburg, Graz, as well as at Stanford and Washington University in St. Louis. He pays homage to the very students who are now expressing their grief on many websites: "Whoever teaches others to read or just wants to practice it [with them] doesn't have an easy time," he writes: "but from experience I can say that there are always surprises when young readers work through difficult texts. And the talk about students who are getting worse and worse is simply obsolete" ("Wer heute das Lesen lehren oder auch nur üben will, hat es nicht leicht, aber aus meiner Praxis kann ich sagen, dass es immer wieder Überraschungen gegeben hat, wenn sich junge Leser an komplexen Gebilden abarbeiten. Und die Rede von den Studierenden, die immer schlechter werden, ist schlicht obsolet [...]"). Schmidt-Dengler was also dedicated to the training of young professors and to the expansion of Austrian Studies abroad. As the head of the Werfel Scholarship Program, he gathered academics for monthly seminar meetings, during which they presented excerpts from recent projects. A yearly conference was devoted to topics ranging from Elias Canetti to the formation of the German-language canon in other countries. His attention was focused in particular on the countries of the former Eastern bloc, and in private many of these young Germanists have stressed that his financial and intellectual support was crucial for their training (they have also expressed concern over their future connections to Austria). His support made possible their many publications on topics ranging from the experimental author Brigitte Falkner to the Büchner Prize winner, the Romanian born Oskar Pastior.

Related to his desire to convey his commitment to literature - which was hardly confined to Austrian writers of the twentieth century (Schmidt-Dengler studied classical philology in addition to German literature; his most recent essay project was to be on Plutarch) - was Schmidt-Dengler's desire to preserve it for future generations. As head of the Literaturarchiv at the National Library, he committed resources and time to the acquisition and publication of important literary testaments. As befits a Bernhard-reader, whose novels and plays revolve around our inability to distance ourselves from our forebears' legacy, Schmidt-Dengler collected materials on diverse authors. Among the better known artists are Konrad Bayer, Erich Fried, Josef Haslinger, Ernst Jandl, Ödön von Horváth, Theodor Kramer, Hilde Spiel, and Dorothea Zeemann. His most recent acquisition was the Vorlass (as opposed to the Nachlass) of Peter Handke, an acquisition of which he was understandably proud.

Schmidt-Dengler's enthusiasm for Austrian literature drew people into his orbit in Vienna, but he was peripatetic in pursuing his interests. In the coming week, Schmidt-Dengler was to travel to a Celan-seminar in the former Galicia, together with the Czech translator of Kafka' works (also a Werfel scholarship recipient). At the end of the month, he was to take part in a tour of Thomas Bernhard's various homes in Upper Austria with some of his co-workers and co-editors from the Literature Archive at the National Library. Finally, on the 28th of September, he intended to journey to the United States, where he was to be f?ted for his prize last year as "Wissenschaftler des Jahres," or "Scholar of the Year." In New York, we planned an evening to discuss the merits of Austrian literature with another former student, Martin Rauchbauer. The event at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York carried the title "Why We Need Austrian Literature." This was meant less as a provocation than an assertion of a conviction; it arose from his - now our - belief that we indeed do need it.

Whether speaking about marginal literary figures in a radio program on the preeminent channel Ö1 or on the most recent European soccer championship (he was an avowed fan), Schmidt-Dengler managed to convey his viewpoints with lucidity, humor, and charming self-deprecation. For those of who remain involved with Austrian literature as educators and scholars, we will have to attempt to follow in his (Bernhardian) footsteps, testing and retesting the boundaries staked by our own commitment to art and to others, in light of his dedication.