In Robert Musil’s fragmentary novel, The Man Without Qualities, history and poetics connect in a very potent manner. A salient example of this is the famous sentence, “It was a fine day in August 1913”, where societal upheaval is portrayed. Meteorological information contrasts and corresponds with scien-tific facts and documented historical events. Above all, it is Musil’s ironic style which brings the text’s literary power of commentary to the fore.
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