Editing Ingeborg Bachmann (section)

=== Writings ===
Bachmann's doctoral dissertation expresses her growing disillusionment with [[Heideggerian]] [[existentialism]], which was in part resolved through her growing interest in [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]], whose ''[[Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus]]'' significantly influenced her relationship to language.<ref>{{Cite news| url=http://jetzt.sueddeutsche.de/texte/anzeigen/313072/Ingeborg-Bachmann|title=Ingeborg Bachmann|date=23 June 2006|work=jetzt.de|access-date=25 June 2017|language=de-DE}}</ref> During her lifetime, Bachmann was known mostly for her two collections of poetry, ''Die gestundete Zeit'' (Time Deferred) and ''Anrufung des Grossen Bären'' (Invocation of Ursa Major).<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lennox|first1=Sara|title=Cemetery of the Murdered Daughters|date=2006|publisher=University of Massachusetts Press| location=Amherst MA|isbn=978-1-55849-552-4|pages=43–50}}</ref>

Bachmann's literary work focuses on themes like [[personal boundaries]], establishment of the truth, and [[philosophy of language]], the latter in the tradition of Wittgenstein. Many of her prose works represent the struggles of women to survive and to find a voice in post-war society. She also addresses the histories of [[imperialism]] and [[fascism]], in particular, the persistence of imperialist ideas in the present.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lennox|first1=Sara|title=Cemetery of the Murdered Daughters|date=2006|publisher=University of Massachusetts Press|location=Amherst MA|isbn=978-1-55849-552-4|pages=294–295}}</ref> Fascism was a recurring theme in her writings. In her novel ''Der Fall Franza'' (''The Case of Franza'') Bachmann argued that fascism had not died in 1945 but had survived in the German speaking world of the 1960s in human relations and particularly in men's oppression of women. In Germany the achievements of the [[women's rights]] campaign at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century had been systematically undone by the fascist [[Nazi regime]] in the 1930s. Bachmann's engagement with fascism followed that of other women writers who in the immediate post-war period dealt with fascism from a woman's perspective, such as [[Anna Seghers]], [[Ilse Aichinger]], [[Ingeborg Drewitz]] and [[Christa Wolf]].<ref>{{Cite book|title= Encyclopedia of German Literature|author =Matthias Konzett |publisher= Routledge|year=2015 |isbn= 978-1-135-94122-2|pages=1023}}</ref>

A crisis of ''[[Vergangenheitsbewältigung]]'', along with the fear of the continued existence of [[National Socialism]] within democracy, suffuses Bachmann's oeuvre. In her work for radio, this takes the form of a self-conscious pivoting between the possibility of freedom and the inevitability of imprisonment. Her first radio play ''Ein Geschäft mit Träumen'' (''A Shop for Dreams'') is concerned with the inhumanity of violence and oppression. ''Der gute Gott von Manhattan'' (''The Good God of Manhattan'') consciously echoes [[Bertolt Brecht]]'s ''[[The Good Person of Szechwan]]'', as it tackles the impossibility of Good and Love surviving in capitalist, consumerist societies. In her analysis of Bachmann's radio drama ''Die Zikaden'' (''The Cicadas''), which was written in [[Ischia]] and then [[Naples]] towards the end of 1954, and first broadcast on [[Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk]] (NWDR) on 25 March 1955, Lucy Jeffery states that<blockquote>The transitory existence of the exiled or marginalised writer who escapes prejudice, conflict, and dominance is paralleled by the experience of the refugee. The feeling of unsettledness is measured against the desire to find that utopian land away (both geographically and temporally) from suffering. Yet, as Bachmann knows too well, escapism is a temporary [[Heterotopia (space)|heterotopia]] where guilt and longing cannot be kept at bay.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Collective Responsibility in Ingeborg Bachmann and Hans Werner Henze's Radio Drama 'The Cicadas' in 'Radio Art and Music: Culture, Aesthetics, Politics' |last=Jeffery |first=Lucy |publisher=Lexington Books |date=2020 |pages=185–205 }} Jarmila Mildorf and Pim Verhulst (eds.). [https://books.google.com/books?id=2f8FEAAAQBAJ&dq=ingeborg+bachmann+radio&pg=PA185 books.google.co.uk].</ref></blockquote> Similar themes can also be found throughout Bachmann's writings in works such as ''Ein Wildermuth'' (''A Wildermuth''), included in ''Das dreißigste Jahr'' (''The Thirtieth Year: Stories'', published in 1961), ''[[Malina (novel)|Malina]]'' (published in 1971), and ''Kriegstagebuch'' (''War Diary'', published posthumously in 2010).

Bachmann was also in the vanguard of Austrian women writers who discovered in their private lives the political realities from which they attempted to achieve emancipation. Bachmann's writings and those of [[Barbara Frischmuth]], [[Brigitte Schwaiger]] and [[Anna Mitgutsch]] were widely published in Germany. Male Austrian authors such as [[Franz Innerhofer]], [[Josef Winkler (writer)|Josef Winkler]] and [[Peter Turrini]] wrote equally popular works on traumatic experiences of socialisation. Often these authors produced their works for major German publishing houses. After Bachmann's death in 1973, Austrian writers such as [[Thomas Bernhard]], [[Peter Handke]] and [[Elfriede Jelinek]] continued the tradition of Austrian literature in Germany.<ref>{{Cite book|title= Encyclopedia of German Literature|author =Matthias Konzett |publisher= Routledge|year=2015 |isbn= 978-1-135-94122-2|pages=50}}</ref>