"Ist das nicht schon Krieg?"

Abstract

Since her early works Elfriede Jelinek has been heavily influenced by the political and cultural movements around 1968. Especially her views on Feminism, Criticism and Media Analysis reflect marxian and early poststructuralist approaches of that time. My article focusses on Jelineks early essays and on her first novel bukolit.hörroman, which had been finished in 1968, but wasn`t released until 1979. By drafting a short reconstruction of the younger austrian history and of the developments around 1968 my article tries to put Jelineks early works in a wider context. Her highly experimental novel bukolitand also her essayistic reflections can be read as indices of the artistic and critical possibilites after the cesura of 1968. In their parodistic style they also throw a critical glance on austria. They point out that 1968 there did not occure like it occured in other european countries and that it had a more anarchistic and even patriarchal undertone.