Doktor Faustus and its Variations on Lateness

Abstract

Abstract Thomas Mann’s novel Doktor Faustus, first published 1947, tells the story of a fictional German musician, Adrian Leverkühn, paralleled with the rise and fall of Germany in the first half of the 20th century. In fact, the idea of Doktor Faustus predated Mann’s exile, and it had been already conceived as a work of lateness – a Faust, a Parsifal in prose. In the process of creating variations on lateness, Mann referred to the musical models of Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler, Schoenberg, and the music criticism of Theodor W. Adorno. As a product of Mann’s exile in Southern California, Doktor Faustus connects the concept of lateness with his experience of exile through music, as Edward Said would later point out in his reflections on “late style.” By engaging with pre-existing compositions and criticism, I will present Doktor Faustus as a novelistic rendering of musical lateness that not only engages with compositions such as Wagner’s Parsifal and Mahler’s Ninth Symphony but also sheds new light on the interpretation of lateness as an artistic and – above all – human experience.