Investigating Taboos in Robert Walser’s Late Microscripts

Abstract

For many years, the Swiss-German writer Robert Walser (1878-1956) has been considered a naive author who lived in isolation, writing pleasant, harmless and worthless texts, uninterested in the cultural, historical and social context. Recent scholarship, however, has demonstrated that he was deeply concerned not only with the issues of his time, but also with the delicate aspects of human existence such as hierarchical social structures, normative modes of gendered behaviour, masochism, violence, death and suicide.

This short paper explores some of these tabooed subjects and sheds light on the intertwining of form and content in some of Walser’s late microscripts. In particular, the paper will focus on the short prose piece With Anger about her Anger she was Green (1928), which features a disturbing phallophagic scene, and Cruel Rites, Customs, Habits (1926), a commented list of cruelties throughout the centuries.

Key-words: Swiss-German Literature, cannibalism, sex, gender fluidity, violence