The Dialectic of Decadence: An Analysis of Thomas Mann'sDeath in Venice

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size NotesThomas Mann, “The Making of the Magic Mountain,” The Magic Mountain, A. A. Knopf, New York, 1955, p. 722Mann himself was well aware that in Death in Venice he had carried the problems of his youth as far as they could go. “Auf dem persönlichen Wege, der zum Tod in Venedig geführt hatte, gab es kein Weiter, kein Darüber Hinaus, und ich verstand es vollkommen, wenn Freunde meiner Arbeit damals ihre Sorge zu erkennen gaben darüber, wie ich es nun überhaupt noch weiter treiben wollte.” Thomas Mann, Untitled Lecture, Blätter der Thomas Mann Gesellschaft, Zürich, Nummer 6, 1966. The lecture in question was given in two parts to undergraduates at Princeton University in 1939. An English version exists in typescript at the Thomas-Mann-Archiv in Zürich.Thomas Mann, Death in Venice, Stories of Three Decades, A. A. Knopf, New York 1955, p. 384. Hereafter D. V.D. V., p. 385D. V., p. 386Georg Lukács, Essays on Thomas Mann, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1965, pp. 22–23D. V., p. 395The enormous impact that Nietzsche had on Mann came early and lasted long. In the Princeton lecture, Mann related that, “Zweifellos ist der geistige und stilistische Einfluß Nietzsches, schon in meinen ersten Prosaversuchen kenntlich.” op. cit., p. 16. Towards the end of his career, Mann drew on the character and thought of Nietzche as a basis for the central figure of Doctor Faustus, Adrian Leverkühn. cf. the Nietzsche anecdote in Mann, “Nietzsche's Philosophy in the Light of Contemporary Events,” Thomas Mann's Addresses, Library of Congress, Washington, 1963, pp. 21–22, with its reappearance as an incident in Adrian's life, Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus, A. A. Knopf, New York, 1960, pp. 141–143. In particular, as our discussion will indicate, the relationship between The Birth of Tragedy and Death in Venice is rather striking.cf. “Accordingly, genius is the capacity to remain in a state of pure perception, to lose oneself in perception, to remove from the service of other words; genius is the ability to leave entirely out of sight our own interest, our willing, and our aims, and consequently to discard entirely our own personality for a time, in order to remain pure knowing subject, the clear eye of the world.” Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans, by E. F. J. Payne, The Falcon's Wing Press, Colorado 1958. Vol. I, pp. 185–186. Schopenhauer was the other philosopher to whom Mann always acknowledged a great intellectual debt. To quote from the Princeton lecture again, “Ich kann von dem Roman Buddenbrooks nicht sprechen, ohne des ungeheuren seelischen Erlebnisses zu gedenken, das im letzen Teil eine so grosse Rolle spielt, ich meine das Erlebnis Schopenhauer.” op. cit., p. 16. In a letter to Joseph Angell, Mann spoke in a similar way of his deep interest in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. “Das Erlebnis seiner (Nietzsche's) Kulturkritik und seines stilistischen Künstlertums ist ersten Ranges in meinem Leben, ebenso wie das metaphysische Genie und europäische Essayistentum Schopenhauers.” Thomas Mann, Briefe, 1937–1947, S. Fischer Verlag, 1963, p. 23.D. V., p. 404Thomas Mann, Tonio Kröger, Stories of Three Decades, op. cit,, p. 99Thomas Mann, The Holy Sinner, A. A. Knopf, New York, 1951, p. 46“Growth of the personality, education, social capacity, and creative power become possible only as … aggressions are increasingly directed outward instead of inward, focused upon the proper objects of attack, and completely neutralized by love when those objects are desirable ones. In this way the self-love and self-hate, primary narcissism and primary self-destructiveness are drawn out from their primitive preoccupation with the self and fruitfully invested in the outside world.” Karl Menninger, Man Against Himself, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. New York, p. 28