Aschenbach, I have suggested, is a philosophical abstraction, a special case, and that is precisely because the human connections, the substance out of which the overwhelming majority of worthwhile lives are constructed, have been entirely removed. His impact on the broader human world is thoroughly reduced—it is not clear whether he has had any intimate exchange with anyone during recent years or even during the past two decades—and channeled through his painfully crafted writings. His “immortality” will come through what Diotima claimed were the best sort of “offspring,” and perhaps she would be right to think that the period of his lingering on will be somewhat longer than the average. Because of his detachment, our assessment of the worth of his life need not probe the sacrifices demanded from others by his rigorous discipline—the complications that arise in the life of his creator are of no concern. We can focus on the works that result from his strivings, and, unless we are in the grip of some misguided prejudice against “the Apollonian,” unless we endorse the jejune complaints about “pure form” Visconti assigns to his “Alfred,” there is no reason to doubt that Aschenbach has achieved enough.
A world without Aschenbachs would be a lesser place, for the human totality of connections—ordinary connections through fostering of family, friends, community—would lack the reflective dimension embodied in Aschenbach (and Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and Mahler and Mann): it would simply be a world of the “lightly living.”140 There is value in the division of labor we actually have, in which some141 great artists lay themselves bare, again and again, in efforts to contest and vindicate a sense of human worth. Recognition of this division of labor and its significance can, however, inspire an unfortunate form of elitism, prominent from Diotima and Plato to the present, one that restricts value either by insisting on great achievements, or on self-consciousness about the sources of value, or on both. We gravitate too easily to the mood of Stephen Dedalus at the end of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, aspiring to fly very high.
Joyce brought his apparent hero down in a painful landing, replacing him with Mr Bloom, a man whose written contributions—advertising copy—are the most ephemeral of productions. Yet Bloom’s connections to the lives of others and to the environment through which he moves are manifold and sympathetic—his life, in process, incomplete, untidy as it is, has a chance of proving worthwhile. In this he is distinguished from almost all of those with whom he is connected: the lives of Joyce’s Dubliners—and of Dubliners—are overwhelmingly cramped and empty. Elitism, to which Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are powerful antidotes, seduces us into supposing that this confinement is inevitable for those who belong to “the herd.”
Not simply the possibility of valuable human lives but the distribution of such lives should be a matter of reflective concern. In a world with enough resources to relieve all members of our species from the confinement of possibilities produced by a daily struggle for survival, a world that might transcend the “puerile and insignificant” condition in which humanity has spent most of its history,142 opportunities for worthwhile human lives, lives that make value-conferring connections in their individual, freely chosen ways, might be far more widely distributed than they are. Death in Venice can be read as a protest against particular ways in which lives are throttled and distorted: Britten’s setting of the novella is an eloquent outcry against the social causes of truncated lives. Beyond the horizons of story or opera, however, lie questions about the possibility of extending the opportunities for valuable lives more broadly—successors to the issues that preoccupied Dickens in his simpler but nonetheless important ventures in philosophical showing.
So, finally, to the predicament of those of us who live well enough to reflect on our existence, who have time to read Mann and to listen to Britten and Mahler, whose disturbances of the universe will not be large but felt through everyday actions that affect those around us. Assuming the possibility that worth may accrue through links to a world that endures beyond us, primarily and paradigmatically through our constructive effects on the lives of others, there are still questions to be addressed. Are those connections of the right sort, broad enough to avoid the charge that we have been parochial? Are they sufficient in the differences they make? These are serious matters for our reflection, issues to be resolved through probes and tests similar to those that surfaced in evaluating the stability of synthetic complexes. Because the distribution of valuable lives ought to concern all of us, we should scrutinize our opportunities for ameliorating the imbalances of that distribution, imagining how those who do not enjoy our advantages might view our efforts. Recognition of the possibility that our contributions may fall short, both on the scale at which we make them and in the intensity of their effects, may—perhaps should—nag at us, as the thought of the insufficiency of what has so far been achieved gnaws at Aschenbach and Mahler and Mann.
There is no algorithm for resolving these questions. Our projects, however rich and deep, are inevitably incomplete and almost always marred by our errors and lapses. Philosophy in a discursive mode may offer pointers, gestures of the kinds I have made in recent paragraphs, identifying the contours of the problem, but it cannot supply sharp instruments to cut through to an unambiguous decision. In the end, as we ponder the question “Have I done enough?”, each of us faces, on a smaller scale, the challenge that has dominated this chapter: how to find a reflectively stable synthetic complex. We may yearn for a satisfying response, a criterion offered in precise language, by philosophers of preternatural wisdom. The gestures of abstract philosophy may indeed orient our eyes and ears and minds, but, in the end, we may find answers we can live with and by not in any refinements of analysis but by hearing and reading, attentively and repeatedly, synthetically and philosophically, the works of great artists—creative geniuses like Benjamin Britten, Gustav Mahler, and Thomas Mann.
NOTES
1. DISCIPLINE
1. For some early reactions (and Mann’s own attitude toward them), see HarpM 1:316 and dMM 2:1314ff. Heinrich Detering provides an excellent account of the first reviews of Königliche Hoheit and the puzzles about how to read it in GKFA 5.2:156–193. Mann’s frustrations with the critical discussion are evident in a 1910 letter to Ernst Bertram, where he writes: “After the overflow of stupidity and wrongly directed subtlety that I have had to submit to in connection with my last book, I was so gripped by your analysis that I could hardly hold back my tears” (Briefe 1:81). The frustration continued throughout his lifetime.
2. Perhaps a better translation for this title would be “Spirit and Art” or “Mind and Art,” but since Aschenbach’s monograph isn’t available for our inspection, it is impossible to tell.
3. It is arguable, I believe, that he never entirely overcame these difficulties and that the final version—with its abrupt “conclusion”—testifies to the problem of sustaining on the scale of a novel the brilliant lightness of touch Mann could achieve in individual episodes.
4. dMM 2:1478 notes that two generations of critics have already been at work and that a third is already under way. Even with the relative abatement of interest in Mann (largely concomitant with increased attention to other twentieth-century German writers), it would now be appropriate to talk of four or five generations of studies.
5. Mann’s aspirations to count as a Dichter (literally a “poet” but, functionally, an elite “man of letters”) rather than as a mere “writer” are plain from the opening lines of his most extended effort at poetry (the Gesang vom Kindchen, written during his apparent discovery of parental love after the birth of his third daughter, and fifth child, the longtime favorite, Elisabeth [Medi]). The ambition to measure himself with Goethe is as central to Mann’s literary life as is the similar preoccupation with Shakespeare to Joyce. In both instances, the fruits of the ambition were the most poetic prose fiction in the respective languages (the verse is minor at best). Mann’s diaries, which record his extensive reading, show very little interest in poetry: apart from Goethe and Sha
kespeare, Platen is the outstanding exception. For discussion of Mann’s longing for “Dichter status,” see HarpM 1:194–196.
In Mann’s usage, “Schriftsteller” is a generic term, covering both those great writers who count as Dichter and the lesser figures whose status is merely that of Literat (a title that might accrue from mere industry without genius or be the result of dilettantism). Both in the Gesang vom Kindchen and in his early essay on the social position of the writer in Germany (“Die gesellschaftliche Stellung des Schriftstellers in Deutschland,” Essays 1:119–123), Mann wants to make a claim for the credentials of prose to achieve the highest literary levels—so that he and Nietzsche could qualify as Dichter. (I am grateful to Mark Anderson for pressing me on this point.)
6. This is not to slight the great achievement of Buddenbrooks in particular but simply to note that, from Death in Venice on, Mann is able to present complicated thoughts and judgments more economically than in his first novel, where the treatment is often naturalistic and the ironies relatively straightforward. The great novels of his maturity—Der Zauberberg, Joseph und seine Brüder, and Doktor Faustus—have an extraordinary density and would have been impossible without the evolution of Mann’s style. Interestingly, in support of his lifelong judgment that Königliche Hoheit was slighted and misunderstood, the second novel can be read as moving toward the mature style.
7. For an illuminating discussion of the achievement of ambivalence in Zauberberg, particularly in the portrait of Hans Castorp, see Alexander Nehamas, The Art of Living (Berkeley: University of California Press), chap. 1. Nehamas’s subtle reading could, I believe, be extended to interpretations of Settembrini, Naphta, and Peeperkorn, as well as Zeitblom and Leverkühn, and through them to Mann’s long engagement with the Enlightenment and the nineteenth-century reaction to it—but this is work for another occasion.
8. Essays (1926–1933) 3:202; also in UMS 125 and (in English) K 109.
9. Essays 3:202–203; UMS 125; I have slightly amended the translation from K 109.
10. Essays 3:203; UMS 125; K 109 translates the phrase somewhat differently.
11. Lieutenant Bilse had published in 1903 a roman à clef about events in his garrison. Mann was evidently offended at being included in a genre whose paradigm was so low budget a work and took some pains to emphasize the long history of fictionalization of actual people and events. Essays (1893–1918) 1:39–40. The book under prosecution in Lübeck was Johannes Dose’s Der Muttersohn; Dose was eventually acquitted (for details, see dMM 2:1110ff.).
12. Essays 1:41.
13. Essays 1:42, 45.
14. Essays 1:42, 46, 47, 49.
15. Essays 3:203; UMS 126.
16. In several places, Mann refers to Der Tod in Venedig as a “tragedy” (see, for example, Essays 3:203). Yet his characterizations of it are so various and, in the case of his correspondence, seemingly correlated with the views and sympathies of those to whom he is writing that it is hard to rely on the shifting judgments. Six months after the novella was published, he wrote a letter to his brother Heinrich, permeated by a sense of difficulty and defeat even deeper than that he had attributed to Aschenbach: he doubts his ability to respond to the “poverty of the age”—even though the sense of that poverty lies heavily upon him. His brother, he claims, is spiritually better attuned for writing in such times; he himself should “probably never have become a writer.” There follows a bitter characterization of his previous work: “Buddenbrooks was merely a bourgeois novel, inappropriate for the twentieth century. Tonio Kröger was tearfully sentimental, Königliche Hoheit vain, Tod in Venedig half-formed and false. These are the final recognitions and the comfort for the hour of death” (THBW 166–167).
17. In the same letter, Mann claims that his entire interest is in decline (Verfall) and that this prevents him from concerning himself with “progress” (THBW 166).
18. Essays 1:121. The distinction Mann draws in this passage is orthogonal to issues of quality and thus contributes to his case for claiming that prose works are capable of attaining the highest levels of literary achievement.
19. Essays 1:121.
20. Although I have translated “Bürger” as “citizen” and shall continue to do so, it has to be acknowledged that there is no English term that fully captures Mann’s usage. Not every citizen is a Bürger, for having a right to that designation presupposes a certain social status and a certain moral worth. The principal figures of the Hanseatic port depicted in Buddenbrooks are definitely Bürger, but many of those who serve them and work for them are not. The Bürger are the “solid citizens,” those who contribute to the economic and social health of the town, uphold its institutions, and exemplify and defend its moral fabric. Stealing a phrase from Ibsen, we might call them the “pillars of the community.” These overtones should be heard in my future references.
21. Outsider status might be the effect of having attitudes or inclinations at odds with those conventionally approved, for example, being attracted to members of your own sex. Chapter 2 will explore the relationship between Aschenbach’s romantic proclivities and his claims to figure simultaneously as artist and citizen.
22. For Tobias Mindernickel, see “Tobias Mindernickel” (GKFA 8.1:181–192); Piepgott Lobsam, “Der Weg zum Friedhof” (GKFA 8.1:211–221); Paolo Hofmann, “Der Wille zum Glück” (GKFA 8.1:50–70); Friedemann, “Der kleine Herr Friedemann” (GKFA 8.1:87–119); Detlef Spinell, “Tristan” (GKFA 8.1:319–371); Schiller “Schwere Stunde” (GKFA 8.1:419–428).
23. Buddenbrooks, part 10, section 5 (GKFA 1.1:708–730). For readers of Ulysses, it is interesting to compare Tom’s situation with the offer made to Bloom in “Circe,” when Boylan generously allows him to “apply himself to the keyhole” so that he can watch his wife’s adultery: it is not clear which predicament is the more agonizing.
24. WWV 1:§52; WWV 2:§59.
25. See the final sentence of Buddenbrooks, part 8, section 7 (GKFA 1.1:576).
26. For the passages alluded to here, see GKFA 8.1:271, 272, 273–274. The comparison between the artist and the castrato is prominent in the notes for Tonio Kröger (GKFA 8.2:208, 210).
27. Mann clearly intended Krull as another ironic and comic exploration of the separation of the artist from bourgeois society. After his near-arrest during a visit to Lübeck (the basis for the similar incident in Tonio Kröger), he began to ponder the similarities between artists and confidence men (dMM 1:550–551). The connection is made very clearly in the early scene in Krull, in which the protagonist and his father visit the actor Müller-Rosé in his dressing room (book 1, chap. 5).
28. GKFA 8.1:317, 318.
29. Tonio’s version, however, might well have lacked some of the ironic insights of the real thing.
30. The disillusionment of young Felix Krull when he sees the pimples on Müller-Rosé’s back exemplifies what Mann—and Tonio!—regard as the result of going behind the scenes and viewing the artist as he is.
31. GKFA 8.1:508.
32. GKFA 8.1:501. Aschenbach is fifty-three and was awarded the “noble particle” on his fiftieth birthday. The opening words of the sentence, which give both his original name and the elevated version, can be read as tacitly asking which designation is more suitable. Interpreted in this way, Mann raises, in the first six words of the novella, the question of whether his protagonist deserves the honor he has received—whether he is “the real thing.”
33. The nearest anticipation of this elaboration of the artist-bourgeois and outsider themes is in the pregnant story “Schwere Stunde,” in which Schiller faces Aschenbach’s initial predicament (his writing will not go forward). Like Aschenbach, he allows himself the opportunity of a break (compare GKFA 8.1:420, 506). Aschenbach shares his high ambition, and both are committed to the moral seriousness of high art. Yet Schiller overcomes—it is only a “heavy hour.” There is one interesting and important difference between the stories. Aschenbach’s ambitions are not associated with any definite rival; for Schiller, however, a
s for Mann, there looms the presence of the man in Weimar, the standard against which writing in German must be judged. Ironically, by the time of Death in Venice, Mann had toyed with the thought of a story about an infatuation of the aged Goethe—and, much later, in Lotte in Weimar, he would come to direct terms with that looming presence.
34. As we shall see, there are echoes of the Symposium and, particularly, of the Phaedrus, which Mann evidently read with considerable care. The preparatory notes quote extensively from these dialogues: GKFA 8.2:478–482.
35. The essay on Schopenhauer was written in 1938 (Essays [1933–1938], 4:253–303); in 1924, Mann wrote a short speech in honor of Nietzsche’s eightieth birthday (Essays [1919–1925]), 2:236–240), and in 1947 he fulfilled a long-considered intention and wrote an extensive essay on Nietzsche (GKFA 19.1:185–226; Essays 6:56–92). As the entries in Mann’s diaries reveal, he reread both authors extensively throughout his lifetime. As we might expect, in the period leading up to the writing of “Schopenhauer,” he read widely in Schopenhauer’s writings (May 17, 18, 23, December 20, 1937; January 24, February 6, 1938 [TB {1937–1939} 62, 65, 144, 164, 172]). He also returned to Schopenhauer at times when his writing was apparently focused elsewhere; for example, January 1, 1920; April 17, 1936; January 29, 31, 1940; November 15, 1944; June 24, 1950; October 3, 1953 (TB [1918–1921] 357; TB [1935–1936] 292; TB [1940–1943] 17–18; TB [1944–1946] 123; TB [1949–1950] 204; TB [1953–1955] 123). References to reading Nietzsche are even more common, often admiring, but sometimes sardonic (December 21, 1946; TB [1946–1948] 75; “Read in Ecce homo. A lot of embarrassing, paralytic nonsense, but decisive for prose in German”). Of course, we have no diary records of Mann’s daily reading for the period before 1918 or that between 1921 and 1933, since he burned the pertinent Tagebücher.
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