The unpublished works of Wilhelm Muster

The unpublished works of Wilhelm Muster (1916 - 1994) an author born and living in the city of Graz are well preserved and are located at the "Franz Nabl Institut" of the Karl-Franzens-University of Graz. It is about 2.5 meters in length and consists of five major partitions: documents, correspondence, manuscripts with preceding assays, and drafts of lectures, courses, or newspaper articles of opinion. Reports and other documents reveal Muster`s journey through life. Muster`s letters comprise interpretations of his scripts and reflect the work on his novels and stories. From the structural plans of his novels and notes, e.g. regarding to the character of a novel, one may comprehend the formation of the text and may feel the intention of the author. Lecture notes deal with modern German literature or with the history of civilization of Spain. Furthermore the unpublished works contain assays about the theory of translation and also newspaper reports, which gave inspiration to the developing work. The critical incorporation requires an inventory of the unpublished works, which has to be followed by putting in order and cataloguing of the material. The principles and practices of library care and administration of the "Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut" and the "Brenner-Archiv" (Innsbruck) have to be taken as a basis for archiving of the unpublished works. The purpose of this project is to provide a precise description and a scientific mastering of the unpublished works of Muster as a basis further publications on interpretational work with Muster`s texts.

The goal of the project was the scientific study of the comprehensive estate of Wilhelm Muster. At the beginning of the research work, a double focus was established: Firstly, there are innumerable notes made by Muster (0.5 running metres), as well as copied newspaper and dictionary articles of the research (0.9 running metres) he carried out in connection with his narrative work. These all illustrate Muster`s world of imagination and his working method. On the other hand, we also have 510 letters containing both autobiographical statements and self- interpretations of the literary texts of Muster. The following results were achieved: By ordering and putting together the records, structure plans, drafts and final versions and the articles collected by Muster, his intentions can be clearly documented and traced. Through the inclusion of the material from the estate, we can gain a much more comprehensive understanding of Muster`s texts. An evaluation of the autobiographical statements and the comments about the work in Muster`s letters revealed important new insights. Extensive additions to Musters`s biography are now possible. However, the restriction must be made that Musters`s statements are sometimes not a faithful reflection of reality because Muster believed that curricula vitae are also a kind of poetry. In the letters to critics, publisher`s editing staff or Jerzy Staus, we find many reflections, comments and self-interpretations of Muster that facilitate an approximation to the authors`s own interpretation of the texts. The contribution "Images of Spain in the literary work of Wilhelm Muster. Comparing the Travel Guide and Powder Country" was published in the anthology "Spain and Austria in the 20th century. Direct and indirect contacts. Files from the ninth Spanish-Austrian symposium" (published by Wolfram Krömer. Anif/Salzburg: Mueller-Speiser 2002). It shows that the image of Spain painted by Muster both in the Travel Guide of Spain (1972) and in the partly autobiographical "Powder Country" novel (1986) and even in the letters is similar. Even the Travel Guide, in which Muster describes Spain as a country full to the brim with life and fond of emotions, is interspersed with stories of death. In the novel, descriptions of the landscape and observations of the fauna on the island of Ibiza, which - seen superficially - appear realistic, paint a dark atmosphere so that Ibiza is continuously surrounded by a dark aura of death, a macabre, disgusting and ancient death. Muster himself declares that in his youth, he spent a long time thinking about dying and death. But the stay in Spain, his second home, did much to promote his preference for subjects associated with death. Work on a longer contribution about the letters in the estate is in progress. In summary, it can be stated that the analysis of this estate built important foundations for further research work about Muster and his work.