Like many intellectuals of his time, Thomas Mann (1875-1955) asked himself – as a German contemporary of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), but a resolute opponent of the Nazi-regime, where to search for the source of the German catastrophe. The answer can be found in his late exile novel ”Doktor Faustus” (1947). The fictional musician Adrian Leverkühn is the incorporation of Germany's mental and psychological disposition. His life is put in the age of Emperor Wilhelm II and the Weimar Republic. As he tells in his famous speech ”Deutschland und die Deutschen” (February 1945), it is clear for Thomas Mann when the German disaster started in the time of the Reformation and humanism. A lot of important persons of that time can be found in the novel, such as Martin Luther, Albrecht Dürer or Johann Georg Faust, who gave the novel its name. Only one figure of the German medieval history appears in ”Doktor Faustus”, emperor Otto III. In his life, both the German catastrophe and Adrian's decline are anticipated. In his essay ”Dürer” (1928), Mann sees the famous German painter (1471-1528) from the point of view of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who was essential for the author's aesthetic and intellectual basis. Not only the persons but also the language and names refer to humanistic and reformation Germany, so the 14^th and 15^th century was used like a foil by the author for his late novel, which is shown beneath. Mann chooses this époque because he declares Martin Luther's rebellion against Rome to the base of the beginning of Germany's breakdown during the next 400 years. According to a popular belief, Faust, who was an obscure magician and a contemporary of Luther, provoked the devil. Mann compares that time with the time in which he lived himself, especially while writing the novel (since 1943). Generally, the characters created by Mann such as Leverkühn and the narrator Serenus Zeitblom are no mere incorporations of reformation figures like Luther or Erasmus – the author's procedure is much more ambitious: both his characters and his whole novel are complex conglomerations of numerous sources and motives.

Keywords:

German catastrophe, novel, fiction, basis, character

Pages:

91-101

Full text

in PDF

Type:

Research Paper

Field:

Literary Science

Topic:

(Literary) Language and Social Conditioning

UDC:

821.112.2.-3.09"19"(092)

DOI:

10.5281/zenodo.817345

Research Paper

Citations

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