The Literary Remains of Werner Schwab - an Appraisal of his Early Prose Writings

The Austrian author Werner Schwab (1958-1994) whose rapid rise to fame and critical recognition on German speaking as well as international theatre stages at the beginning of the nineties was considered the most successful and most widely performed contemporary German speaking dramatist at the time of his death. There are fourteen or to be precise fifteen plays in the publicized catalogue of works of this short lived writer. Reviewers detected a new diction and a new tone of language in his oeuvre. Above all Schwab`s irritating as well as strange and utterly distinct dramatic language, which was soon referred to as the Schwabian style of writing (das Schwabische), attracted their special attention. Gradually German linguistic research started to deal with Schwab, however, focussing exclusively on Schwab`s theatre texts. His early prose writings, which were created in the eighties and were only in some cases publicized, have been ignored so far. Schwab`s prose writings are part of the substantial literary remains which were filed at the Franz Nabl Institute for Literary Research in 2010/11. The purport of the project is the appraisal of manuscripts and documents of his literary remains with particular regard to Schwab`s prose writings, which the author composed before the successful breakthrough in his career. The main objective is his hitherto not considered early prose whose relevance for the genesis of the special Schwabian language as well as for the literary development of the writer in general cannot be overrated. That is the reason why for the first time it is to be subjected to a closer examination as far as language and texts are concerned. The main emphasis is on issues concerning the origin of texts to gain further insights into the genesis of the distinct Schwabian language, as it can be found in a more pronounced way in his plays. Obviously this distinctive form of language developed over a number of years. Certain lexical and morphological phenomena can already be detected in his early writings. His early prose language leaves an extremely hyperplastic and dissolute impression and forms to a great extent a hermetic and auratic language area. Specific plot points, themes, characters and set-up of his later oeuvre which need to be studied or rather whose transformation process is to be analysed, were quasi pre-created in his early prose drafts. Moreover the focus is on any possible linguistic theory/ philosophy which may obviously have played a vital role for his understanding of language as well as the poetological self-conception of the author. Eventually Schwab`s place in the tradition of modern (preferably experimental) Austrian narrative literature is to be determined.

The main purpose of the project "The literary remains of Werner Schwab - appraisal of his early prose writings" was the thorough study and analysis of work manuscripts and documents that are available in his literary remains, especially his early prose writings that have not been researched so far, writings that Schwab had authorized before his breakthrough in theatre. The analysis focusses on the genesis of language, texts and works in general, in particular the genesis of the distinct language Schwab uses, which had obviously developed over a number of years. It was found that specific characteristics of the so-called Schwabian, which eventually becomes a peculiar and complex artificial language, can already be traced back to his early writings with their striking grammatical and morphological alienations (e.g. neologistic compound words, hybrid syntax). In its completed form Schwabian appears for the first time in the play Die Präsidentinnen. Concerning Schwab's literary production of the 1980ies, individual work complexes could clearly be identified. Examples include the early dramatic "Hör-Stücke", brack komma ein and schlagen da zwei complemented by the "cadaver play" Das Lebendige ist das Leblose und die Musik, which was written a few years later. Furthermore, there were written records that are very similar to diary entries (posthumously published with the title In harten Schuhen) and the textual corpus "Orgasmus: Kannibalismus", "Präsidialer Surrealismus" and a partly dramatic, partly narrative text about a "Hundsmaulstimme" or the character of "Sepp". Schwab's early writings also comprise first drafts of various plays which brought Schwab worldwide fame. In general there are several plot points, themes, characters, motifs and constellations of his later plays that were already pre-drafted in his early prose writings and texts. Based on his correspondence, it was possible to record Schwab's attempts to get his texts published or rather to be accepted by the literary scene. A significant part of his literary remains are Schwab's notes on works of linguistic, structuralistic and semiotic research, which prove his early interest in text and language theory and became significant above all in his own idea of language as malleable material. Schwab subjected language to radical operations of deconstruction and reconstruction, mainly with the intention to create an "innermost" language. Based on earlier linguistic philosophical concepts, Schwab was convinced of the autonomy of language as well as of its absolute dominance over the speaker. This specific perspective on language ultimately formed the core of his linguistic theory. Concerning recent research literature dossier online Werner Schwab (p. 2018) is available, a compilation of both recent and older contributions on Werner Schwab's work. Parts of the results of this project have been published in various media and further contributions on Schwab's early writings are being prepared.