ABSTRACT
A good ten years before the social revolution of the 1960s brought on a new wave of feminism, Ingeborg Bachmann expressed most of its major themes, yet so subtly as to remain unseen and unsung at first. Her uniquely unconditional stance and radically critical thinking, conveyed in highly artistic, sophisticated ways, were recognized by the reading public and the scholarly world largely only after her death. Today, Bachmann stands as an icon of early postwar feminist writing; indeed, she was an isolated voice at a time when the new feminism was neither defined nor fashionable. Bachmann’s creative work emerged alongside studies and research in philosophy that culminated in a dissertation (1949) on Martin Heidegger. In this work, she attempted to refute the philosopher—and with him an entire world of thought in male-conceived paradigms. At the same time, however, she realized the sheer impossibility of such an undertaking, for language, itself part of the established system, cannot express what is in need of being expressed. This is the problematic of much of the author’s writing.
