- Thomas Mann. Eine Einführung in sein Werk (Bern, 1953), pp. 90 ff. Cf. Meno Spann, “Goethisches in Manns Josephszyklus,” Modem Language Quarterly, V, 259.
- PEGS, New Series, xxv, 3.
- Ibid., pp. 3 f.
- Ibid., p. 5.
- Ibid., p. 7.
- Ibid., p. 16.
- Ibid., p. 8.
- Ibid., p. 8.
- Ibid., p. 18.
- Ibid., p. 13.
- Thus Asher writes: “On what is often slender evidence Mann provides a picture which is almost wholly negative. We read of Goethe's ‘schwerfällige Beleibtheit,’ his surly face, his close-set eyes and hanging cheeks.” (PEGS, XXV, 10.) Asher does not tell us that the passage from Mann referred to continues: “Im Alter dann näherte seine Erscheinung sich wieder mehr derjenigen des Jünglings an, nur dass aus dem Apoll oder Hermes ein Jupiter geworden war, höchst majestätisch, ein König, halb, halb ein Vater… ein wundervolles Haupt mit herrlicher Felsenstirn,… einem bezwingenden schwarzen Augenpaar, blitzend von geistiger Energie, wenn es nicht eben von maussader Müdigkeit gedämpft und verhangen war…” (Neue Studien, pp. 37 f.) Is this picture “almost wholly negative”? And if not, whose evidence is “slender”? Again, Asher complains that Mann describes Goethe as “für unsre Begriffe beinahe ein Alkoholiker” (PEGS, xxv, 10), and conceals from us that Mann concludes his description of Goethe's drinking habits with the explanation, “Das galt damals für mässig.” (Neue Studien, p. 42.) Surely this comment completely alters the tone of the passage! In this way Asher arrives at his conclusion that Mann “debunks him [Goethe] so thoroughly that the Phantasie über Goethe… seems like an attempt to discredit Goethe altogether.” (PEGS, xxv, 9.) The reader would hardly guess from this that the supposed attempt at “discrediting” Goethe contains sentences about him such as: “Das Ideal der Deutschheit erfüllt sich in ihm—man möchte hinzufügen: das Ideal des Menschen.” (Neue Studien, p. 49.) Besides, is there any reason why Mann should have wished to “discredit” Goethe in the very essay he wrote as an introduction to an American selection from Goethe's works? But this is yet another fact Asher chose not to mention.
- “Aspects of Parody in the Works of Thomas Mann,” MLR, xlviii, 30–48.
- F. Schlegel, Prosaische Jugendschriften (Vienna, 1906), ii, 171. Cf. Hermann J. Weigand, Thomas Mann's Novel ‘Der Zauberberg’ (New York and London, 1933), pp. 64 ff.
- Cf. Goethe's letter to Humboldt, 17 March, 1832, and Neue Studien, ed. cit., p. 64.
- PEGS, XXV, 19.
- Rede und Antwort (Berlin, 1922), pp. I f.
- Adel des Geistes (Stockholm, 1945), p. 288.
- Die Forderung des Tages (Berlin, 1930), p. 11.
- PEGS, XXV, p. 4.
- Among Mann's early critics, it was almost de rigueur to point out that Mann was “sentimentalisch” and to contrast him with “naive” poets such as Goethe or Hauptmann. Cf. e.g., Wilhelm Alberts, Thomas Mann und sein Beruf (Leipzig, 1913), pp. 115 ff.
- Rede und Antwort, ed. cit., p. 6.
- Ibid., p. 337.
- Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (Berlin, 1929), p. 59.
- Dichtung und Wahrheit, W. A. I, xxviii, 151. The quotation is not quite accurate.
- Forderung des Tages, ed. cit., p. 395.
- Ibid., p. 175.
- Cf. Hermann J. Weigand, op. cit. and my article referred to in f.n. 12.
- Thomas Mann made the most of them, however; cf. e.g., Altes und Neues, ed. cit., p. 179.
- In The Theme of the Joseph-Novels (Washington, 1942, p. 5), Thomas Mann tells us that he had hardly begun to think about re-telling the Joseph-story when “these inner experiments significantly associated themselves with the thought of tradition; the thought of Goethe in fact…” Mann then reminds us that Goethe had written a Joseph-epic as a boy and quotes Goethe's remark on the biblical legend in Dichtung und Wahrheit: “Höchst anmutig ist diese natürliche Erzählung, nur erscheint sie zu kurz, und man fühlt sich berufen, sie ins Einzelne auszumalen.” Cf. also Thomas Mann, A Sketch of My Life (Paris, 1930), pp. 58 ff. and Bruno Walter's comparison of the circumstances under which Goethe wrote the Divan with those under which Mann wrote the Joseph-novels (Neue Rundschau, Sondernummer, 6 June, 1945, p. 172).
- Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus (Amsterdam, 1949), p. 21.
- Thomas Mann und Goethe (Bern, 1949).
- Eichner likewise misquotes me grossly. May I ask when and where I have ever described Lotte in Weimar as “a work of fiction, not a biography”? This is a strange and categorical statement which, had I made it, would nullify my own arguments. Being clearly a mixture of fantasy and fact, the novel contains—for all Mann's ambivalence—clear biographical elements.
- Der Zauberberg, Stockholm, 1954: Einführung in den Zauberberg für Studenten der Universität Princeton, p. xviii: “Der Stil dieses kuriosen Buches (Felix Krull), von dem nur ein grösseres Fragment übrig geblieben ist, war eine Art von Parodie auf die grosse Memoiren-Literatur des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts und auch auf Goethes Dichtung und Wahrheit.”
- Adel des Geistes, Stockholm, 1945: Freud und die Zukunft, p. 585.
- Adel des Geistes, Stockholm, 1945: Goethe und Tolstoi, p. 282.
- Cf., for example, Der Zauberberg, Stockholm, 1954: Einführung in den Zauberberg für Studenten der Universität Princeton, pp. xv f.
- Altes und Neues, Frankfurt/M, 1953: Ein Wort über Gottfried Keller, 1919, p. 696.
- Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus, Amsterdam, 1949, p. 161.
- Ibid., p. 168: “Bewunderungsvoll bis zum Schluss, liess ich mich in meiner literarhistorischen Unwissenheit verwirren und intriguieren durch die Nichtübereinstimmung des vierten Bandes, wie er mir jetzt vorlag, mit der im Krankenzimmer benutzten Ausgabe, von der offenbar doppelten Fassung…”
- Ibid., p. 169: “Und wie sonderbar, sonst nie vorkommend, das spätere Verlassen der autobiographischen Form, der Übergang vom Ich in die dritte Person!”
- Ibid., p. 169.
- Thomas Mann: Eine Einführung in sein Werk, München, 1953, p. 48.
- Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus, Amsterdam, 1949, p. 127. In a footnote Eichner attempts to disprove my interpretation of the Phantasie über Goethe as “a picture which is almost wholly negative.” In view of Eichner's objections to quotations being “torn from the original context” he is inconsistent, to say the least, in basing his arguments on further “torn” quotations. All of them, if properly understood, substantiate my own interpretation of the essay. For example, Eichner takes as a compliment to Goethe Mann's subtle jibe that “das Ideal der Deutschheit erfüllt sich in ihm—man möchte hinzufügen: das Ideal des Menschen.” But this comment precedes one of the most negative passages in the whole essay, as will be clear to any unbiased reader who peruses pages 49 and 50 of the Phantasie. Having pointed out that Goethe fulfilled the “German ideal,” Mann goes on to show that, amongst other things, Goethe was against the freedom of the press, against democracy and constitutions, that he had little or no humanitarian belief in man—and so on. That the Phantasie was an introduction to an American selection of Goethe's works had not escaped my notice. Quite evidently Mann was playing upon his American readers what Eichner calls “ein sehr ernster Scherz.”
- Lotte in Weimar, Stockholm, 1949, p. 95.
- Thomas Mann: Bine Einführung in sein Werk, München, 1953, p. 59.
- Der Zauberberg, Stockholm, 1954, p. 706.
- Thomas Mann: Eine Einführung in sein Werk, München, 1953, p. 59.
- Goethes Gespräche mit Eckermann, 14 February, 1830.
Publications of the English Goethe Society
Volume 26, 1957 - Issue 1