ABSTRACT
In the case of James Joyce and Hermann Broch, both types of influence are at work, but the second type is more controversial and more challenging than the first. The undateable and unprovable traces of relationship are established not at all, they are fascinatingly complex, and they will provide the matter of this paper. Broch uses Ulysses as an echo-chamber of his own ideas and preconceptions about art and the place of art in some ideal conception of human life. He admires Joyce for escaping from the merely personal, from mere Bekenntnis, to the expression of an epoch. In Ulysses and Die Schlafwandler Joyce and Broch not only shared a common apprehension of their world, but they also shared a common insight in terms of craft and technique. Broch's greatest originality lies in his achievement in an area that bored James Joyce: that of politics.
