The Cambridge Introduction to Thomas Mann

✍ Scribed by Todd Kontje

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 154
• Series: Cambridge Introductions to Literature
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Nobel Prize-winner Thomas Mann (1875–1955) is not only one of the leading German novelists of the twentieth century, but also one of the few to transcend national and language boundaries to achieve major stature in the English-speaking world. Famous from the time that he published his first novel in 1901, Mann became an iconic figure, seen as the living embodiment of German national culture. Leading scholar Todd Kontje provides a succinct introduction to Mann's life and work, discussing key moments in Mann's personal life and his career as a public intellectual, and giving readers a sense of why he is considered such an important - and controversial - writer. At the heart of the book is an informed appreciation of Mann's great literary achievements, including the novel The Magic Mountain and the haunting short story Death in Venice.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
The Cambridge Introduction to Thomas Mann
Title
Copyright
Contents
Chronology
Chapter 1 Introduction
Keywords
Chapter 2 Origins, influences, and early mastery
Childhood and early influences
First novellas
Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family
Chapter 3 Artists and outcasts in Mann’s early fiction
Tonio Kröger
Artists, ascetics, and outcasts
Marriage and the artist
Death in Venice
Chapter 4 From world war to the Weimar Republic
Mann’s wartime journalism
The evolution of Mann’s political thought
A return to literature
The Magic Mountain
Chapter 5 The struggle against National Socialism
Joseph and his Brothers
Disorder and Early Sorrow and Mario and the Magician
Lotte in Weimar
Transposed Heads and The Tables of the Law
Chapter 6 A pact with the devil: Doctor Faustus
Chapter 7 Tribulations and final triumphs
Mann’s last years
The Holy Sinner
The Black Swan
The Confessions of Felix Krull
Mann’s subsequent reception and reputation
Notes
1 Introduction
2 Origins, influences, and early mastery
3 Artists and outcasts in Mann’s early fiction
4 From world war to the Weimar Republic
5 The struggle against National Socialism
6 A pact with the devil: Doctor Faustus
7 Tribulations and final triumphs
Suggested further reading
Novels
Selected stories
Essays, diaries, and letters
Memoires
Selected critical analyses
Index