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Sixteen new, carefully focused essays on the prose works of one of
the great writers of modernity. Thomas Mann is among the greatest
of German prose writers, and was the first German novelist to reach
a wide English-speaking readership since Goethe. Novels such as
Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, and Doktor Faustus attest to his
mastery of subtle, distanced irony, while novellas such as Death in
Venice reveal him at the height of his mastery of language. In
addition to fresh insights about these best-known works of Mann,
this volume treats less-often-discussed works such as Joseph and
His Brothers, Lotte in Weimar, and Felix Krull, as well as his
political writings and essays. Mann himself was a paradox: his role
as family-father was both refuge and facade; his love of Germany
was matched by his contempt for its having embraced Hitler. While
in exile during the Nazi period, he functioned as the prime
representative of the "good" Germany in the fight against fascism,
and he has often been remembered this way in English-speaking
lands. But a new view of Mann is emerging half a century after his
death: a view of him as one of the great writers of a modernity
understood as extending into our 21st century. This volume provides
sixteen essays by American and European specialists. They
demonstrate the relevance of his writings for our time, making
particular use of the biographical material that is now available.
Contributors: Ehrhard Bahr, Manfred Dierks, Werner Frizen, Clayton
Koelb, Helmut Koopmann, Wolfgang Lederer, Hannelore Mundt, Peter
Putz, Jens Rieckmann, Hans Joachim Sandberg, Egon Schwarz, and Hans
Vaget. Herbert Lehnert is Research Professor, and Eva Wessell is
Lecturer in Humanities, both at the University of California,
Irvine.
Understanding Thomas Mann offers a comprehensive guide to the
novels, short stories, novellas, and nonfiction of one of the most
renowned and prolific German writers. In addition to analyzing
Mann's most famous works, including Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice,
The Magic Mountain, and Doctor Faustus, Hannelore Mundt introduces
readers to lesser-known works, among them Joseph and His Brothers,
Lotte in Weimar, and The Black Swan. In close readings, Mundt
illustrates how Mann's masterly prose captures both his time and
the complexities of human existence with a unique blend of humor,
compassion, irony, and ambiguity. Mundt takes readers
chronologically from Mann's literary beginnings in 1894 to his last
novel, Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. She considers
the influence of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche on the
emergence of Mann's literary voice, his conflicted feelings about
his bourgeois background, and his life as Germany's representative
writer in the Weimar Republic and in exile. Mundt places Mann's
works in the realistic and modern traditions and discusses his
recurring thematic concerns - the individual's rebellion against
oppressive bourgeois conventions and antihumanistic principles, the
need for an unremitting questioning of authority and ostensibly
absolute truths, and the antagonism between individualistic freedom
and social responsibility. In light of the recent publication of
Mann's diaries, disclosing his homosexual inclinations, Mundt also
identifies the textual strategies he adopted for revealing and
simultaneously masking his secret sexuality. Mann emerges from
Mundt's analysis as a writer who plays with opposing perspectives
in his fictional renderings of both the alienated individual and
Germany's cultural and political history. Mundt suggests that the
openness of his works, paired with his deep insights into human
existence, explains his stature as a literary figure whose
importance extends worldwide.
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