From The Magic Mountain: Mann's Later Masterpieces

252 Pages·1979·14.401 MB·English

by  Henry Hatfield

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MANN'S LATER MASTERPIECES
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MANN'S LATER MASTERPIECES
ALSO BY HENRY HATFIELD
Winckelmann and His German Critics
Thomas Mann: An Introduction to His Fiction
Schnitzler, Kafka, Mann (edited, with J. M. Stein)
The Lichtenberg Reader (edited, with F. H. Mautner)
Goethe: A Critical Introduction
Thomas Mann: A Collection of Critical Essays (editor)
Modern German Literature
Crisis and Continuity in Modern German Fiction
Clashing Myths in German Literature
Copyright © 1979 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in
writing from the publisher. For information address Cornell University
Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 1979 by Cornell University Press.
Published in the United Kingdom by Cornell University Press Ltd. •
2-4 Brook Street, London WIY lAA.
International Standard Book Number 0-8014-1204-8
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 78-74213
Printed in the United States of America
by York Composition Co., Inc.
Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information
appears on the last page of the book.
For
THEODORE ANDERSSON,
MARIA TATAR, and
THEODORE ZIOLKOWSKI
"Dreifach merk'lJJi.ircf ger Geisterschritt"
Contents
Preface 9
1. Achieving the Impossible 17
2. The Magic Mountain 34
3. ~1 yths Ancient and Modern 68
Joseph and His Brothers 68
The Beloved Returns: Lotte in Weimar 94
4. Doctor Faustus 108
5. The Persistence of Comedy 135
The Holy Sinner 135
Felix Krull 144
6. Mann in the Eyes of His Contemporaries 158
7. Mann and the Political Scene 176
8. A Brief Appraisal 209
Appendix: Letter to Walter Ulbricht 216
Source Notes 223
Selected Bibliography 240
Mann's Works 240
Secondary Material in English 241
Bibliographies 242
Secondary Material in Gennan 243
Index of Names 247
Index of Thomas Mann's Works 251
Preface
A quarter-century after his death, more than a century
after his birth, Mann's reputation stands imposingly firm. The
many celebrations of his centenary, in 1975, showed that the
spell of the "old magician" was still powerful. Why is it that
Mann remains a commanding figure while not a few of his
internationally known contemporaries, some of them also
winners of the Nobel Prize, have faded into obscurity? A few
explanations may be ventured.
Mann combined, to a remarkable degree, great literary
gifts with the disciplined industry of a German civil servant of
the old school. Hardly a scholar, he incorporated ideas into
his books in a way that enriched their literary quality. Even
more important than his intellectual scope is the breadth of
his appeal; he did not write primarily for an elite but quite
frankly wished to attract all the readers he could get and often
succeeded; Buddenbrooks, his first novel, has sold over a mil
lion copies. Doubtless his humor and wit have attracted readers
to The Magic Mountain who might otherwise have found the
book arid. Mann's most engaging, most unexpected quality is
a certain youthful verve, closely linked to his sense of humor,
which increased as he grew older. Doctor Faustus, published
when he was over seventy, is a "wild book"-the adjective is
Mann's-compared to Buddenbrooks, published when he was
9
10 / Preface
twenty-six. His books are found in libraries scattered over
Eastern as well as Western Europe, in North and South
America as well as in Japan and Israel. Even a village library
in New England is likely to have at least The Magic Mountain
and Stories of Three Decades in its modest collection.
Thomas Mann's own life is in itself an impressive Bildungs
roman-educational novel. Only after Mann had written The
Magic Mountain, after he had come to terms with the ques
tions raised in Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen ("Reflec
tions of a Nonpolitical Man"), published in 1918, did he
manage to view the "problem" of being German with a cer
tain irony and partially free himself from the influence of
that "constellation of three stars"-Schopenhauer, Wagner,
Nietzsche. Then his education was really under way.
This book focuses on Mann's literary works from The
Magic Mountain onward, that is, on about the last thirty
years of his long career. His earlier novels and stories and his
other prose pieces also are discussed throughout the book inso
far as they relate to his development, as man and artist, and
as they help to portray the mature Mann. The novels and
stories written earlier are first briefly treated in the first chap
ter, which may serve as an overture as well as an overview.
The Magic Mountain, Joseph and His Brothers, Lotte in
Weimar, Doctor Faustus, The Holy Sinner, and Felix Krull
are given substantial treatment. Although Buddenbrooks is a
highly mature literary work, it is not, I believe, a product of
Mann's mature thought.
Happily, I have been privileged to examine closely several
hundred of the letters to and from Mann stored in the Thomas
Mann Archive in Zurich. Mann's letters are often revealing.
His letter of protest to the East German satrap Walter Ul
bricht, hitherto unpublished, is an important document (see
Preface / 11
the Appendix}. Many of the letters from the Thomas Mann
Archive in Zurich (cited as TMA in the Source Notes) are
referred to or quoted, and the information gathered from this
fine collection supplements my discussion throughout. To the
best of my knowledge, the letters marked TMA have not
previously been published.
In literature, Mann was a follower and transmitter of great
traditions: the emulation of Goethe, the European novel, the
Bildungsroman. Less obviously, he was an innovator, an ex
perimenter. As the novelist Albrecht Goes wrote to Mann:
"But when have you desired . . . anything except what seems
impossible?" (unpublished letter of 14/4/51, Mann Archive).
Accordingly, I venture to use the word "masterpieces" in the
subtitle of this book, for inevitably some masterpieces are more
masterly than others, even Mozart's. Yet the novelist, surely
the lesser figure of the two, shared with the composer the
quality of sustained excellence. In a less than enthusiastic essay
J.
on The Holy Sinner, Hermann Weigand declared: "It is
still the hand of the master which wields the pen."
The image of a prominent person formed by others during
or after his life, is part of his "portrait," of his or her total
reputation. This effect applies to works of literature as well;
for instance, the fact that Shakespeare's plays have been more
highly prized in Germany than in France is due in part to the
enthusiasm with which Lessing and Herder championed them
in the eighteenth century, while Voltaire's attitude was quite
negative. Chapter 6, "Mann in the Eyes of His Contempo
raries," considers comments on Mann by professional writers
and others. Most of these figures are important, colorful, or
both.
The last chapter, on Mann and politics, deals with a topic of
great concern to Mann from 1914 until his death in 1955. In-