Myth and Counter-Myth: The joseph Tetralogy

Abstract

In November 1929, Thomas Mann heard the news that he was to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. It was only the third time that a German writer had been so honoured, and Mann was understandably delighted by the announcement. In the midst of the celebrations, however, he was forced to observe wryly that his fame with the Swedish Academy seemed to rest solely upon the achievement of Buddenbrooks, a novel that he had completed almost a quarter of a century before. Mann did not speculate on the reasons for these apparent reservations regarding his mature work. Had he done so, he might well have recognized not only the intellectually demanding nature of his later fiction, but also a certain pessimism of tone or, at least, an undercutting of optimism that is to be found in such ‘death-sympathetic’ works as Death in Venice and The Magic Mountain. In their consistent ironic deflatioa of ideals, both works seem far from providing the basis for the new Humanitätsideal (humanist ideal) that Mann asserted in his essay, ‘German Republic’ of 1922, was the way forward, both for himself and his nation.