During the First WorldWar Robert Musil served as an officer on the South Front. His notebooks provide much information about Italian landscapes and soldiers which later can be found in his literary works, for instance his novellas Grigia and Die Amsel. My paper considers this particular image of Italy in relation to the tradition of the Italian journey and its aesthetic categories. Both an erotic and a dangerous experience of the sublime play a major role here; in contrast, however, the writer seems to show no interest towards Italian social reality during the hard times of war.
