No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Thomas mann began his career under the influence of naturalism. While naturalistic tendencies are apparent in all of his writings, there exists at the same time another tendency, counteracting the danger of one-sidedness inherent in a strictly naturalistic approach to reality. The aesthetically refined world of Der kleine Herr Friedemann, which collapses when confronted with real life and the visionary experiences found in Gladius Dei and Der Kleiderschrank are indications that Mann's broader scope was present in the early stories. Tristan displays both naturalistic and visionary aesthetic tendencies. In Buddenbrooks, it is religion, including Tony's family worship, which balances the naturalistic trend apparent in the style as well as in the concept of biological decadence. In Der Tod in Venedig, myth is used with extraordinary effectiveness to complement naturalism.
1 Three poems and his first published story appeared in the periodical Die Gesellschaß during the years 1893–99. See Hans Bürgin, Das Werk Thoma sManns (Frankfurt a.M., 1959), pp. 123–125; Thomas Mann's article “Dem Andenken Michael Georg Conrads” in Werke in zwölf Bänden (Frankfurt, 1960), X, 447–449. (Hereafter reference to this edition is made by volume and page number in the text.) See also Briefe 1889–1936 (Frankfurt, 1961), p. 177.
2 Henry Hatfield, “Charon and ‘Der Kleiderschrank’,” MLN, lxv (1950), 100–102.
3 Josef Hofmiller, “Thomas Manns ‘Tod in Venedig’,” Süddeutsche Monatshefte, x (1913), 218–232, reprinted in Merkur, ix (1955), 505–520. Fritz Martini in Das Wagnis der Sprache (Stuttgart, 1954), pp. 176–224. Wiliam H. Rey, “Tragic Aspects of the Artist in Thomas Mann's Work,” MLQ, XIX (1958), 195–203. See fn. 12 below.
4 “Myth plus Psychology: A Style Analysis of Death in Venice,” GR, xxxi (1956), 191–205.
5 “Stoff und Idee im ‘Tod in Venedig’,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, xxxiii (1959), 13–19.
6 Cf. the definitions in the article by W. Knewels, “Wesen und Sinn des Mythos—Untersuchung zur Eliminierung und Existentialisierung des Mythos,” Studium Generale, XV (1962), 668–705, and various studies by Walter F. Otto, particularly “Der Mythos und das Wort” in Das Wort der Antike (Darmstadt, 1962), pp. 348–373, and “Der Mythos,” Studium Generale, viii (1955), 263–268. More literature is found in “Mythos und Dichtung” by Klaus Ziegler in W. Kohlschmidt and W. Mohr, Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte (Berlin, 1962), ii, 569–584. In this article, the romantic contribution to the modern perception of the myth is discussed. Thomas Mann's mythical conception belongs to this romantic tradition in that it is “transempirical,” i.e., it does not derive the myth from empirical perceptions, as even Rohde occasionally does in Psyche, although his views generally belong to the romantic tradition also. Mann, however, does not overrate the mythical world as the Romanticists tend to do.
7 GR, xxxi, 199. Cf. also Fritz Martini, op.cit., especially pp. 202 and 217–224, where the Narcissus-motif is treated in detail. Helmut Koopmann, Die Entwicklung des intellektualen Romans bei Thomas Mann, Bonner Arbeiten zur deutschen Literatur, No. S (Bonn, 1962), makes use of the Nietzschean concept “doppelte Optik” in order to describe this phenomenon in Thomas Mann's essays and novels. He does not deal with Der Tod in Venedig.
8 Nietzsche in the Early Works of Thomas Mann, Univ. of Calif. Pubs. in Modern Philology, xlv (Berkeley, 1955), pp. 84–88.
9 Nietzsche, Werke, ed. Schlechta, i (München, 1954), 29.
10 See Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche: Einführung in das Verständnis seines Philosophierens (Berlin, 1936), pp. 147–204. —How near Nietzsche was to the artistic creation of a mythical world can be especially demonstrated by aphorism 54 of Die fröhliche Wissenschaft: “Das Bewußtsein vom Scheine.—Wie wundervoll und neu und zugleich wie schauerlich und ironisch fühle ich mich mit meiner Erkenntnis zum gesamten Dasein gestellt! Ich habe für mich entdeckt daß die alte Mensch- und Tierheit, ja die gesamte Urzeit und Vergangenheit alles empfindenden Seins in mir fortdichtet, fortliebt, forthaßt, fortschließt—ich bin plötzlich mitten in diesem Traum erwacht, aber nur zum Bewußtsein, daß ich eben träume und daß ich weiterträumen muß, um nicht zugrunde zu gehn ...” Nietzsche, Werke, ed. Schlechta, ii (München, 1955), p. 73.
11 Friedrich Nietzsches Briefwechsel mit Erwin Rohde, eds. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Fritz Schöll, 2nd. ed., Friedrich Nietzsche, Gesammelte Briefe, Vol. ii (Berlin, 1902). The correspondence must have made a considerable impression on Mann, not only because of the Schopenhauer
cult which is displayed by the young Nietzsche as well as by Rohde, but also because of their common antagonism to their profession and its philological methods. Any intelligent German who had suffered from the spirit of the German Gymnasium of the time would have found his inner resistance glorified in the Nietzsche-Rohde correspondence. Its climax is found in the letters which concern Rohde's public defense of Nietzsche' s Geburt der Tragödie. This work was Nietzsche's first attack on what he considered the shallow optimism of modern scholarship. His counterposition is what he calls the tragic myth, brought forth from the Dionysian spirit, which he considered accessible to our time by way of Schopenhauer and Wagner's music. It is quite obvious how near these ideas are to Thomas Mann's. He quoted from Nietzsche's letter to Rohde of 8 October 1868 quite frequently: x, 231, 837; xii, 79, 106, 146–147, 407, 541; Briefe an Paul Amann (Lübeck, 1959), p. 56 (comment by Herbert Wegener: p. 107); Thomas Mann an Ernst Bertram (Pfullingen, 1960), p. 46 (comment by Inge Jens: p. 223). A copy of the Nietzsche-Rohde correspondence is still in Mann's library in Zürich.
12 “Die griechischen Anklänge in Thomas Manns ‘Tod in Venedig’,” Monatshefte, xliv (1952), 20–26.
13 Erwin Rohde, Psyche: Seelencult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen, 4th printing (Tübingen, 1907), i, 3. Two volumes, bound in one. Hereafter, references to Psyche are given in the text.
14 Both Mautner and von Gronicka draw conclusions from the context in which this passage appears in the Odyssey. Thomas Mann, in a letter to Mautner, denied any intention to use the context (Proteus predicting Menelaos' future destiny) as a motive. Mautner quotes Mann: “Wenn ich nicht irre, habe ich die Verse, ohne an den Zusammenhang zu denken, in dem sie stehen, frei aus dem Gedächtnis geschöpft, wo sie schon aus Knabentagen gut aufbewahrt waren.” Mann did indeed err, because Rohde explains the context. As for Mann's Odyssey memory, it seems that Felix Krull had assumed the pen in writing to Mautner. Mautner, “Thomas Mann über ‘Tod in Venedig’,” Monatshefte, l (1958), 256–257. The mythology book of his childhood by Nösselt (see fn. 16 below) offers a rather crude translation (p. 377), which was definitely not the source for Der Tod in Venedig.
15 A sojourn at the beach occurs elsewhere in Thomas Mann's writings as an escape from the demands, implied in our world, to use time properly. Cf. Die Buddenbrooks, i, 629–639; “Strandspaziergang,” Der Zauberberg, iii, 755–757.
16 The name of Kephalos (also abducted by Eos) was taken from this source. The wording in this and other passages proves that the book in question is Friedrich Nösselt's Lehrbuch der griechischen und römischen Mythologie für höhere Töchterschulen und die Gebildeten des weiblichen Geschlechts. Thomas Mann's library as it is now preserved in Zürich does not contain this book. Therefore it is not clear which edition he used. The only copy accessible to me was an edition of 1865, which definitely shows Nösselt to be one of the sources for Mann's notes. Slight differences in the wording suggest that he owned an earlier edition. In an answer to an inquiry by the literary magazine Die literarische Welt (Berlin, 28 June 1929), Thomas Mann wrote: “Sehr einflußreich war Friedrich Nösselts griechische und römische Mythologie mit schönen Auszügen aus Homer und Virgil. Dies Buch besitze ich noch.”—Cf. xi, 329, in “Kinderspiele,” where the mythology book mentioned is also Nösselt. The quotation “diamantscharf schneidende Sichel” reads, in the 1865 edition, “diamantne, scharfschneidende Sichel” (p. 25). Cf. Mann's letter of 20 March 1952, Thomas Mann and Karl Kerényi, Gespräch in Briefen (Zürich, 1960), pp. 177–178.
17 See Thomas Mann, Briefe 1889–1936 (Frankfurt, 1961), pp. 123, 177; Arthur Eloesser, “Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des ‘Tod in Venedig’,” Neue Rundschau, xxxvi (1925), 611–616; Hans M. Wolff, Thomas Mann (Bern, 1957), pp. 45–46; see also Thomas Mann's letter to Julius Bab, GR, xxxvi (1961), 196. The date of this letter is 2 March 1913, not 1912 (original in the Library of Congress).
18 Neither Rohde nor Nösselt (see fn. 16 above) emphasizes the foreign god.
19 DVLG, xxxiii, 16.
20 Mann liked to comment on the phrase “angeborene Verdienste” as typically Goethean (e.g., xii, 57, 133; ix, 549–550, 735; ii, 613). It does occur in Dichtung und Wahrheit (Hamburger Ausgabe, ix, 475) but, as far as I can see, only once and nowhere else; certainly not as frequently as Mann asserts. In Doktor Faustas (vi, 114–115) both “natürliche Verdienste” and “angeborene Verdienste” are said to be expressions frequently used by Goethe. It seems, however, that “natürliche Verdienste” is merely Mann's variation of the phrase in Dichtung und Wahrheit. All occurrences of the word “Verdienst” which can be located with the help of Paul Fischer's Goethe Wortschatz (Leipzig, 1929), the index of the Jubiläumsausgabe, Grimm's Deutsches Wörterbuch, and Schmidt-Obenauer, Goethe Taschenlexikon (Stuttgart, 1955) (several other Goethe reference works fail to list “Verdienste”) show that Goethe normally used the word to mean simply “merit.” The Goethe Wörterbuch being compiled by the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin has collected several passages where the word “Verdienste” appears with the meaning “talent,” “ability,” “inclination,” but this is not so paradoxical as Mann makes it appear, since Grimm lists one meaning of “Verdienst” as being entitled to recognition. Its use in this sense belongs to Goethe's belief that “das Sittliche” is “angeschaffene und angeborene Natur” (this formulation attributed to Goethe by Eckermann; Biedermann, Goethes Gespräche, Leipzig, 1910, iii, 363). The phrase “angeborene Verdienste” does not necessarily have an aristocratic color.
21 The verse “oft veränderten Schmuck und warme Bäder und Ruhe,” following soon thereafter, has—to my knowledge—not yet been identified.
22 There are a few more pencil marks. One concerns Rohde, i, 98. Rohde says here that the Boeotian school of poetry was antagonistic to Homeric poetry, which presents many lies in such a way that they appear like truth. The idea of poetry as mere appearance may have reminded Thomas Mann of Nietzsche. Cf., e.g., Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, Aphorism 54 (part of which was quoted in fn. 19 above), which is close to the ideas dealt with in this article in many respects. Other passages show Mann's interest in Demeter and Persephone (Rohde, i, 280, 284), and Iakchos, a Dionysos-form and son of Persephone. Perhaps Thomas Mann had toyed with the idea of including classical death-mythology in Der Tod in Venedig.
23 There is one more doubtful parallel. Semele's death is mentioned: Thomas Mann, viii, 492, and Rohde, i, 320; the passages are in a somewhat different spirit, though.
24 Thomas Mann began preparatory work for Der Zauberberg as early as July 1913 (letter to Ernst Bertram, 24 July 1913; Thomas Mann an Ernst Bertram, pp. 17–18); actual writing had started in September (letter to Hans von Hülsen of 9 Sept. 1913, unpublished, privately owned). Both letters refer to the work later named Der Zauberberg as a “Novelle” and a “Gegenstück zum ‘Tod in Venedig’.”
25 iv, 189–190, 402, 422–423, 436, 581, 677–678; v, 1334.
26 iv, 93, 618, 622, 629; v, 1295, esp. 1522.