Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti (1905-1994) was a Bulgarian-born writer and Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, celebrated for his profound exploration of human nature and the dynamics of crowds. His early life in a multilingual family fueled his rich understanding of language and culture, which he later channeled into his literary works. Canetti's experience amid the chaos of the 1927 Palace of Justice fire in Vienna deeply influenced his views on the individual versus the collective, a theme he extensively examined in his seminal nonfiction work, *Crowds and Power*.
Although trained as a chemist, Canetti never pursued a career in the field, instead dedicating himself to writing novels, plays, essays, and aphorisms that reflect his philosophical inquiries. His notable works include the novel *Auto-da-Fé* and three plays that experiment with the concept of "acoustic masks," emphasizing the unique vocal characteristics of individuals. Despite his relatively low popularity, Canetti is regarded as a significant intellectual figure whose insights into the human condition and societal structures continue to resonate today. His autobiographical writings, including *The Tongue Set Free*, offer a nuanced reflection of the turbulent twentieth century and his own life experiences.
Subject Terms
Elias Canetti
Austrian novelist, playwright, and essayist
- Born: July 25, 1905
- Birthplace: Ruse, Bulgaria
- Died: August 13, 1994
- Place of death: Zurich, Switzerland
Biography
When Elias Canetti was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, he was recognized as a preserver and transmitter of classical German culture in an age when the individual is threatened by the powerful brutality of the masses. Canetti was born on July 25, 1905, in Ruse, Bulgaria. His father, Jacques Canetti, belonged to a merchant family of Sephardic Jews who had settled in Turkey several centuries before moving to Bulgaria. His mother, Mathilde Artitti, also belonged to one of the old and distinguished Sephardic families. The parents had met while studying in Vienna and spoke German—almost as a secret language—when they were together. The common language of the Jewish community was Ladino, an old form of Spanish, and Canetti also heard and understood Hebrew and Bulgarian, as well as perhaps a dozen languages and dialects at this early stage of life.
When Canetti was six years old the family moved to England, where he added English and French to the list of languages he knew. Following the sudden death of his father, his mother decided to move to the Continent, where they lived in Vienna, Zurich, and Frankfurt, and Canetti learned and mastered German, the language he used for all of his writings. Upon completion of secondary school in 1924 Canetti attended the University of Vienna. Although he completed his study of chemistry with a doctorate in 1929 to satisfy the wishes of his family, he never worked professionally as a chemist.
From 1930 to 1931 he wrote the novel Auto-da-Fé, which did not appear in print until a suitable publisher was found in 1935. Two sources had a great influence on Canetti’s work, not only in writing this novel but also on his work in general: the great Austrian poet and satirist Karl Kraus and the events surrounding the burning of the Palace of Justice in Vienna on July 15, 1927. In his Nobel lecture Canetti noted that the writer and critic Kraus taught him “to hear imperturbably the sounds of Vienna” and to be forever opposed to war.
The personal experience of participating in the crowd on the day the Palace of Justice was burned by an angry and unorganized group had a profound and lasting impact on Elias Canetti. He happened to meet a man who would later serve as a prototype for the protagonist of his novel, Peter Kien. This man was lamenting the burning of the paper files in the building rather than realizing and lamenting the fact that almost a hundred people had been killed. The man, like Kien, demonstrated a life devoid of human compassion and a life devoted to the unreality of a totally bureaucratic world. For Canetti, on the other hand, the experience led to a lifetime study of the nature and power that the crowd can have on the actions of the individual.
The nonfiction work Crowds and Power was published almost thirty years after Canetti had completed his one novel. Its impetus harks back not only to the 1927 experiences but also to Canetti’s observations concerning the rise of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism in Germany and, after the 1938 annexation, in Austria. Canetti and his wife, Venetia, were among the last Jews to leave Vienna for Paris, moving the following year to London. There, for the next twenty years, Canetti conducted his monumental study of the origin, constitution, and behavior of crowds from primeval to modern times. Crowds and Power ranks as one of the premier studies of that topic.
As a companion to his major works written in London exile, Canetti began writing aphorisms. Selections from 1942 to 1985 have been published in The Human Province and The Secret Heart of the Clock. While some of the aphorisms relate to specific readings Canetti was engaged in at various times, most are reflections on specific issues he studied, such as the Jews and their fate, myths of various cultures, crowds and power, wars and revolutions, and languages. During this period Canetti also wrote a series of essays on Karl Kraus, Confucius, Hermann Broch, Stendhal, Aristophanes, Leo Tolstoy, and Hitler, among others.
Canetti’s three plays, The Wedding, Comedy of Vanity, and Life-Terms, have been well received in the United States as well as in Europe in theaters staging more daring and experimental dramas. In these absurd dramas Canetti created “acoustic masks,” suggesting that individuals have acoustic characteristics unique unto themselves. This same notion is, among other things, articulated in Canetti’s travel diary The Voices of Marrakesh and in his autobiographical writings, The Tongue Set Free, The Torch in My Ear, and The Play of the Eyes. The autobiography also serves as a highly perceptive history of the earlier decades of the twentieth century. Canetti created the “acoustic masks” of former times and different places in his elegant style of writing.
After receiving the Nobel Prize, Canetti continued to be cited for his extraordinary and revolutionary work. He never was, nor will he ever be, a popular, best-selling author. Fellow artists and writers, as well as scholars, however, have recognized him as a profound thinker and, in the words of novelist Iris Murdoch, as “one of our great imaginers and solitary men of genius.” Canetti set out to “grab [the] century by the throat.” What he said about Franz Kafka is equally applicable to his own work: “One turns good when reading him, but without being proud of it.”
Author Works
Long Fiction:
Die Blendung, 1935 (Auto-da-Fé, 1946; also known as The Tower of Babel)
Drama:
Hochzeit, pb. 1932 (The Wedding, 1984)
Komödie der Eitelkeit, pb. 1950 (Comedy of Vanity, 1983)
Die Befristeten, pb. 1956 (The Numbered, 1964; also known as Life-Terms)
Dramen, pb. 1964 (collection of plays)
Nonfiction:
Fritz Wotruba, 1955 (English translation, 1955)
Masse und Macht, 1960 (Crowds and Power, 1962)
Aufzeichnungen, 1942-1948, 1965
Die Stimmen von Marrakesch: Aufzeichnungen nach einer Reise, 1967 (The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit, 1978)
Der andere Prozess: Kafkas Briefe an Felice, 1969 (Kafka’s Other Trial, 1974)
Alle vergeudete Verehrung: Aufzeichnungen, 1949-1960, 1970
Die gespaltene Zukunft, 1972
Macht und Überleben, 1972
Die Provinz des Menschen: Aufzeichnungen, 1942-1972, 1973 (The Human Province, 1978)
Der Ohrenzeuge: Fünfzig Charaktere, 1974 (character sketches; Earwitness: Fifty Characters, 1979)
Das Gewissen der Worte, 1975 (The Conscience of Words, 1979)
Der Beruf des Dichters, 1976
Die gerettete Zunge: Geschichte einer Jugend, 1977 (The Tongue Set Free: Remembrance of a European Childhood, 1979)
Die Fackel im Ohr: Lebensgeschichte, 1921-1931, 1980 (The Torch in My Ear, 1982)
Das Augenspiel: Lebensgeschichte, 1931-1937, 1985 (The Play of the Eyes, 1986)
Das Geheimherz der Uhr: Aufzeichnungen, 1973-1985, 1987 (The Secret Heart of the Clock: Notes, Aphorisms, Fragments, 1973-1985, 1989)
Die Fliegenpein: Aufzeichnungen, 1992 (The Agony of Flies: Notes and Notations, 1994)
Nachträge aus Hampstead: Aus den Aufzeichnungen, 1954-1971, 1994 (Notes from Hampstead: The Writer’s Notes, 1954-1971, 1998)
Aufzeichnungen, 1992-1993, 1996
Über Tiere, 2002
Bibliography
Arnason, Johann P. and David Roberts. Elias Canetti’s Counter-image of Society: Crowds, Power, Transformation. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2004. Presents an advanced exploration of how Canetti’s Crowds and Power relates to the rest of his literary work.
Berman, Russell A., ed. The Rise of the Modern German Novel: Crisis and Charisma. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986. Situates Canetti’s novel within the context of fiction contemporary with his time.
Darby, David, ed. Critical Essays on Elias Canetti. New York: G. K. Hall, 2000. Collection of scholarly essays discusses varied aspects of Canetti’s work.
Daviau, Donald. Major Figures of Contemporary Austrian Literature. New York: Peter Lang, 1987. Offers a very thorough study of Canetti’s career by a seasoned scholar.
Daviau, Donald, ed. Modern Austrian Literature 16 (1983). This special Elias Canetti issue features several essays on Auto-da-Fé, some in English, some in German.
Donahue, William Collins. The End of Modernism: Elias Canetti’s “Auto-da-Fé.” Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Presents a comprehensive study of the novel’s cultural and philosophical contexts.
Donahue, William Collins, and Julian Preece, eds. The Worlds of Elias Canetti: Centenary Essays. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars, 2007. Collection of essays focuses on the context of Canetti’s work, addressing topics such as the author’s Jewish identity, his early Marxism, and the relation of his work to the aftermath of World War II.
Falk, Thomas W. Elias Canetti. New York: Twayne, 1993. Good introduction to Canetti’s work contains a separate chapter on his one novel as well as chapters on all his important book-length works. Supplemented with a chronology and an annotated bibliography.
Hulse, Michael, ed. Essays in Honor of Elias Canetti. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1987. Collection includes several essays on Auto-da-Fé and Canetti’s other books. Recommended for advanced students of Canetti.
Lawson, Richard A. Understanding Elias Canetti. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991. Succinct introductory study is one of the best places for a student to begin becoming acquainted with Canetti’s work.
Modern Austrian Literature 16 (1983). Special issue devoted to Canetti’s work is edited by noted scholar Donald Daviau. Features several essays on Auto-da-Fé, some in English, some in German.
Powe, B. W. The Solitary Outlaw. Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1987. Explores Canetti’s handling of language and of writing. Recommended for advanced students and scholars.
Scott, David. Metaphor as Thought in Elias Canetti’s “Masse und Macht.” New York: P. Lang, 1999. Uses the theories of cognitive rhetoric to argue that Canetti’s conclusions may be simultaneously poetic and scientific.
Sontag, Susan. Under the Sign of Saturn. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980. Contains what is still perhaps the best single essay in English on the range of Canetti’s work, “Mind as Passion.”