摘要：Through the tradition of critical reflection on the intellectual role in the society, in this paper we aim to compare the thought and work of two German-speaking writers who only apparently differ for historical and cultural context, Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) and Robert Menasse (1954). The two authors, while recognizing the revolutionary potential held by the intellectuals towards the establishement, put to shame, in irreverent parodies, the "mission" of the intellectuals from the twentieth century to nowadays. In the eyes of the writer, the analysis the two authors lead in their literary works is important to understand the contradictory position of contemporary writers, caught between the "crisis" (Lyotard 1984, Bauman 1987, Lepenies 1992, Bourdieu 1994, Said 1995) and the ambition to became “a Sartre of these times” (Menasse in Bartsch-Holler 2004). The thought of the two authors will be analyzed in the light of the critical literature on the role of the intellectual in the present in the sense of crisis, immobility and involution. The aim of this work is to shed light on a critical tradition which, started by Bertolt Brecht with his notorious skepticism and parody of any intellectual mission made of empty speeches against “barbarism”, is now confirmed in the most current literature. In his novels Menasse tries to undermine the postmodern literary practice by means of postmodernism itself and, through the irreverent parody of intellectuals who want to identity the project of the Weltgeist in the contemporary age, he shows frustrating processes of involution and the denial of any authorial perspective.
