An intellectual novel in the works of T Mann. Intellectual novel

The term "intellectual novel" was first coined by Thomas Mann. In 1924, the year the novel “The Magic Mountain” was published, the writer noted in the article “On the Teachings of Spengler” that the “historical and world turning point” of 1914-1923. with extraordinary force intensified in the minds of his contemporaries the need to comprehend the era, and this was refracted in a certain way in artistic creativity.

T. Mann also classified the works of Fr. as “intellectual novels”. Nietzsche. It was the “intellectual novel” that became the genre that for the first time realized one of the characteristic new features of realism of the 20th century - the acute need for interpretation of life, its comprehension, interpretation, which exceeded the need for “telling”, the embodiment of life in artistic images. In world literature he is represented not only by the Germans - T. Mann, G. Hesse, A. Döblin, but also by the Austrians R. Musil and G. Broch, the Russian M. Bulgakov, the Czech K. Capek, the Americans W. Faulkner and T. Wolfe , and many others. But T. Mann stood at its origins.

Multi-layeredness, multi-composition, the presence of layers of reality far removed from each other in a single artistic whole became one of the most common principles in the construction of novels of the 20th century.

The German “intellectual novel” could be called philosophical, meaning its obvious connection with the traditional philosophizing in artistic creativity for German literature, starting with its classics. German literature has always sought to understand the universe. A strong support for this was Goethe's Faust. Having risen to a height not reached by German prose throughout the second half of the 19th century, the “intellectual novel” became a unique phenomenon of world culture precisely because of its originality.

The very type of intellectualism or philosophizing was of a special kind here. In the German “intellectual novel”, its three largest representatives - Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Alfred Döblin - have a noticeable desire to proceed from a complete, closed concept of the universe, a thoughtful concept of the cosmic structure, to the laws of which human existence is “subjected”. This does not mean that the German “intellectual novel” soared in the sky and was not connected with the burning problems of the political situation in Germany and the world. On the contrary, the authors named above gave the most profound interpretation of modernity. And yet the German “intellectual novel” strived for an all-encompassing system. (Outside the novel, a similar intention is obvious in Brecht, who always sought to connect the most acute social analysis with human nature, and in his early poems with the laws of nature.)

The novels of T. Mann or G. Hesse are intellectual not only because there is a lot of reasoning and philosophizing. They are “philosophical” by their very construction - by the obligatory presence in them of different “floors” of being, constantly correlated with each other, assessed and measured by each other.

Historical time laid its course below, in the valley (as in “The Magic Mountain” by T. Mann, and in “The Glass Bead Game” by Hesse).

Brecht's epic theater. New principles of art.

Brecht is a German writer, playwright, and theater reformer.

“The Ballad of a Dead Soldier” is a satirical work after which Brecht was noticed.

"Baal" is a play.

“Drum in the Night” - awarded a prize in Germany.

Brecht's aesthetic system was formed by Marxism, realism, and expressionism.

The Threepenny Opera (1928) is based on the Beggar's Opera. In it, the author describes the lower classes of London society.

Shocks the audience with the words: “Great first, and morality later!” He believed that morality can only exist when a person has tolerable living conditions.

Wrote: “The Good Man from Szechuan”, “The Life of Galileo”, “The Caucasian Purple Circle”, “The Career of Arthur Louis that Might Not Happen.” "Mother Courage" is a prophetic play.

Brecht's creative method was formed under the influence of expressionism (he singled out one trait, it is significant for all objects) and Marxism (exaggerates personal qualities). Brecht calls this alienation - a new reasonable look at the familiar old, without stereotypes. He does not need the viewer to empathize, he must argue. (“Suffering belittles thought...”). He calls his theater non-Arestotelean.

*You must first change the world, and then a person will become kind

*There is no intrigue in the plays (The viewer should think and not be distracted by emotions, like Aristotle)

* The form of dramas is a play-parable (The actors do not get used to the role, there is no makeup, costumes or scenery)

He does not involve the viewer in the performance. Theater must be philosophical, epic, phenomenal and alien.

Absurdity as a philosophical and ideological category in foreign literature of the 20th century.

It was conceptual dramaturgy, implementing the ideas of absurdist philosophy. Reality, existence was presented as chaos. For the absurdists, the dominant quality of existence was not compression, but decay. The second significant difference from the previous drama is in relation to the person. Man in the absurdist world is the personification of passivity and helplessness. He cannot realize anything except his helplessness. He is deprived of freedom of choice. Absurdists developed their own concept of drama - antidrama. Back in the 30s, Antonei Artaud spoke about his perspective on the theater: abandoning the depiction of a person’s character, the theater moves to a total depiction of a person. All the heroes of the drama of the absurd are total people. Events also need to be considered from the point of view that they are the result of certain situations created by the author, within which a picture of the world is revealed. The drama of the absurd is not a discussion about the absurd, but a demonstration of the absurd.

The play "Rhinoceros". Show the absurdity of life through the absurd.

IONESCO: “Bald girl”. In the drama itself, there is no one who looks like the bald girl. The phrase itself makes sense, but in principle it is meaningless. The play is full of absurdity: it is 9 o'clock, and the clock strikes 17 times, but no one in the play notices this. Every time I try to put something together it ends in nothing.

BECKETT: Beckett was Joyce's secretary and learned to write from him. “Waiting for Godot” is one of the basic texts of absurdism. Entropy is represented in a state of expectation, and this expectation is a process, the beginning and end of which we do not know, i.e. it makes no sense. The state of waiting is the dominant state in which the heroes exist, without wondering whether they need to wait for Godot. They are in a passive state.

The heroes (Volodya and Estragon) are not completely sure that they are waiting for Godot in the very place where they need to be. When the next day after the night they come to the same place to the withered tree, Estragon doubts that this is the same place. The set of objects is the same, only the tree blossomed overnight. Estragon's shoes, which he left on the road yesterday, are in the same place, but he claims that they are larger and of a different color.

According to an article by Eugene Rose (the ever-memorable hieromonk Seraphim) - After all, the philosophy of the absurd is not new; it consists in negation, and from beginning to end is determined by what exactly is subject to negation. The absurd is possible only in relation to something non-absurd; the idea of the world's nonsense can only come to the mind of someone who believed in the meaning of existence, and in whom this faith has not died. The philosophy of the absurd cannot be understood apart from its Christian roots.

It is absolutely clear that they (the creators of the absurd) do not like the absurdity of the universe; they recognize it, but do not want to put up with it, and their art and philosophy essentially amount to attempts to overcome it. As Ionesco said, “to denounce the absurd is to affirm the possibility of the non-absurd,” adding that he is “constantly looking for enlightenment, revelation.” This atmosphere of expectation, which was noted above in some works of absurd art, is nothing more than an image of the experiences of a contemporary, lonely and disappointed, but still not losing hope for something unclear, unknown, which will suddenly open up to him and return his life both meaning and purpose. Even in despair we cannot do without at least some hope, even if it is “proven” that there is nothing to hope for.

Features of an intellectual novel.
Creativity of T. Mann
G. Mann.

The term was proposed in 1924 by T. Mann. The “intellectual novel” became a realistic genre, embodying one of the features of 20th century realism. - an acute need for interpretation of life, its comprehension and interpretation, exceeding the need for “telling.”

In world literature they worked in the genre of intellectual novel; Bulgakov (Russia), K. Chapek (Czech Republic), W. Faulkner and T. Wolf (America), but T. Mann stood at the origins.

A characteristic phenomenon of the time has become the modification of the historical novel: the past becomes a springboard for clarifying the social and political mechanisms of modernity.

A common principle of construction is multi-layering, the presence in a single artistic whole of layers of reality far removed from each other.

In the 1st half. In the 20th century a new understanding of myth emerged. It acquired historical features, i.e. was perceived as a product of a distant past, illuminating repeating patterns in the life of mankind. The appeal to myth expanded the time boundaries of the work. In addition, it provided the opportunity for artistic play, countless analogies and parallels, unexpected correspondences that explain modernity.

The German “intellectual novel” was philosophical, firstly, because there was a tradition of philosophizing in artistic creativity, and secondly, because it strived for systematicity. The cosmic concepts of German novelists did not pretend to be a scientific interpretation of the world order. According to the wishes of its creators, the “intellectual novel” was to be perceived not as philosophy, but as art.

Laws of constructing an “Intellectual Novel”:

* The presence of several non-merging layers of reality(German I.R. is philosophical in its construction - the obligatory presence of different levels of existence, correlated with each other, assessed and measured by each other. Artistic tension lies in the combination of these layers into a single whole).

* A special interpretation of time in the 20th century (free breaks in action, movements into the past and future, arbitrary acceleration and slowdown of time) also influenced the intellectual novel. Here time is not only discrete, but also torn into qualitatively different pieces. Only in German literature is such a tense relationship observed between the time of history and the time of personality. Different hypostases of time are often spread across different spaces. Internal tension in a German philosophical novel is largely generated by the effort that is needed to keep time intact and to unite the actually disintegrated time.

* Special psychologism: An “intellectual novel” is characterized by an enlarged image of a person. The author's interest is focused not on clarifying the hidden inner life of the hero (following L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky), but on showing him as a representative of the human race. The image becomes less developed psychologically, but more voluminous. The spiritual life of the characters received a powerful external regulator; it is not so much the environment as the events of world history, the general state of the world (T. Mann (“Doctor Faustus”): “... not character, but the world”).

The German “intellectual novel” continues the traditions of the educational novel of the 18th century, only education is no longer understood only as moral improvement, since the character of the heroes is stable, the appearance does not change significantly. Education is about liberation from the random and superfluous, so the main thing is not the internal conflict (reconciliation of the aspirations of self-improvement and personal well-being), but the conflict of knowledge of the laws of the universe, with which one can be in harmony or in opposition. Without these laws, the guideline is lost, so the main task of the genre becomes not knowledge of the laws of the universe, but overcoming them. Blind adherence to laws begins to be perceived as convenience and as a betrayal in relation to the spirit and to man.

Thomas Mann(1873-1955). An eminent German writer, novelist, essayist, winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature, and one of the most brilliant and influential European writers of the 20th century, Thomas Mann was regarded by himself and by others as the leading exponent of Germanic values and the chief exponent of German culture from 1900 until his death in 1955. A staunch opponent of National Socialism (Nazism) and the regime of German dictator Adolf Hitler, he became the keeper of the vitality of these values and this culture during one of the darkest periods in German history. Countless people from all over the world have read, enjoyed, studied and admired Mann's novels and stories, translated into many languages. And his story “Death in Venice” is recognized as the best work of literature of the 20th century, among those devoted to the theme of same-sex love.

Thomas Mann was born on June 6, 1873, 4 years after the birth of his older brother Heinrich, into a noble and wealthy merchant family (wealthy grain merchant) in the port of Lübeck, an important center of trade on the North Sea. In this ancient, quiet German city, the coming changes associated with the golden shower of indemnities from France, the result of the war it lost, did not immediately become noticeable. Later, it was he who caused a business fever in Germany, the hasty founding of all kinds of enterprises and joint-stock companies.

The family in which the future famous writer grew up belonged to the previous era with all its habits, way of life, and ideals. She tried in vain to preserve the traditions of the patrician merchant family and cultivated the customs of the “free city”, which Lubeck had been for centuries and continued to be considered at the end of the 19th century.

Young Thomas, however, was more interested in poetry and music than in the family business or school activities. After the death of his father in 1891, the inherited trading office was sold and the family moved to live in Munich. Thomas, while working at an insurance agency and then studying at university, turned to journalism and freelance writing. It was in Munich that Thomas began his literary career in earnest, achieving such decent success with a number of short stories that his publisher suggested that he try a larger work.

Even after the death of the father, the family was quite wealthy. Therefore, the transformation from burgher to bourgeois took place before the eyes of the writer.

Wilhelm II spoke about the great changes to which he was leading Germany, but T. Mann saw its decline.

Both brothers - Thomas and Heinrich Mann - decided early on to devote themselves to literature. They took their first steps in this field in full agreement and supporting each other. His relationship with his brother Heinrich Mann was difficult, and they soon went their separate ways. Far and long. The views and positions of life of the two brothers (Henry lived longer) differed on many points.

The reason was probably partly the fame that befell the younger man as soon as he published Buddenbrooks. She far surpassed the elder's fame and could arouse in him a feeling of understandable jealousy. But there were deeper reasons for the mutual cooling - differences in ideas about what a writer should and should not do. Henry and Thomas became close again decades later. They were united by a common humanistic position and hatred of fascism.

After the Romantics, German literature was moving towards a temporary decline, and young people were faced with the task of restoring the reputation of German literature. Consequently, here too the situation is when a person enters a creative life, begins to write, the first thing he does is begin to comprehend what is happening around him, what the literary situation is, what path he should choose. And this rationalistic approach, characteristic of Galsworthy and Rolland, was also present to the highest degree in the young Mann.

If Heinrich Mann chose Balzac and the traditions of French literature as his ideal and example (H. Mann’s interest in France was constant), and his first novels were generally built on the model of Balzac’s narrative, then Thomas Mann again found a reference point for himself in Russian literature. He was attracted by the scale of the narrative, the psychological depth of the research, but at the same time the still gloomy German genius of T. Mann was fascinated by the ability, the desire of Russian literature to get to what was seen as the roots of life, our desire to know life in all its fundamental principles. This is characteristic of both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

The writer was acutely aware of the problematic nature of his place in society as an artist, hence one of the main themes of his work: the position of the artist in bourgeois society, his alienation from “normal” (like everyone else) social life. (“Tonio Kröger”, “Death in Venice”).

In the 1920s T. Mann becomes one of those writers who, under the influence of the war they experienced, the post-war era, and under the influence of emerging German fascism, felt it was their duty “not to bury their head in the sand in the face of reality, but to fight on the side of those who want to give the earth human meaning.”

In 1939.v. - Nobel Prize, 1936... - emigrated to Switzerland, then to the USA, where he was actively involved in anti-fascist propaganda. The period was marked by work on the tetralogy “Joseph and His Brothers” (1933-1942) - a myth novel in which the hero is engaged in conscious government activities.

The decline of one family - the subtitle of the first novel “Budennbroki” (1901). The full title of the novel is "Buddenbrooks, or the story of the life of one family." The author is Thomas Mann, who was 25 years old. It was his second major publication, and the novel immediately made him famous. But at 25, becoming a national genius is psychologically early and a big burden. And with the knowledge that he was a national genius, Thomas Mann lived for the rest of his life, nothing stopped him from writing beautiful works.

The peculiarity of the genre is a family chronicle (traditions of the river novel!) with elements of epic (historical-analytical approach). The novel absorbed the experience of 19th century realism. and partly the technique of impressionistic writing. T. Mann himself considered himself a continuator of the naturalistic movement.

At the center of the novel is the fate of four generations of Buddenbrooks. The older generation is still at peace with itself and the outside world. Inherited moral and commercial principles lead the second generation into conflict with life. Tony Buddenbrook does not marry Morten for commercial reasons, but remains unhappy; her brother Christian prefers independence and turns into a decadent. Thomas energetically maintains the appearance of bourgeois prosperity, but fails because the external form that one cares about no longer corresponds to either the state or the content.

T. Mann is already opening up new possibilities for prose, intellectualizing it. Social typification appears (details acquire symbolic meaning, their diversity opens up the possibility of broad generalizations), features of an educational “intellectual novel” (the characters hardly change), but there is still an internal conflict of reconciliation and time is not discrete.

At the same time, Thomas Mann was a man of his time in a specific national situation. Why did the novel "Buddenbrooks" become so popular? Because the readers who opened this novel when it was published found in it an exploration of the main tendencies of national life.

"Buddenbrooks" is a work that is also distinguished by its large-scale coverage of reality, and the life of the heroes, Buddenbrooks, is part of the life of the country. This is the same family chronicle, the same epic novel, before us is a story about the life of 4 generations of the Buddenbrook family. These are burghers from the city of Lubeck, a fairly wealthy family, and the time of the novel is most of the 19th century. Thomas Mann uses in the narrative some data and realities of life of his family, which also came from the city of Lübeck. In the case of the Manns, they are descendants of a family of free burghers, they carry within themselves this feeling of belonging to the clan. But in the case of the Manns, this family tradition was very abruptly ended; their father married the daughter of his partner, and when he died, the mother (their stepmother) of 2 more daughters decided that her sons would do anything but trade. She sold the company, her sons were prepared in a modern way, for a different life, they were oriented towards writing books, they were taken to Italy and France from childhood. We will find all these biographical details in Buddenbrooks. The Manns received an excellent education.

Thomas Mann brought all this material about his family, including the situation with his brothers and sisters, into this novel in the 3rd generation, but this material undergoes changes in interpretation, something is added to it.

Each representative of the Buddenbrooks family is a representative of his time: he carries his time within himself, and somehow tries to build his life in this time.

Old Johann Buddenbrook, a typical representative of turbulent times, a man of rare intelligence, very energetic, took over the company. And your son? - a product of the era of the sacred union, a man who can only preserve what his father did. He does not have such inner strength, but there is a commitment to the foundations.

And finally, the 3rd generation. He is given more attention in the novel: Thomas Buddenbrook becomes the central figure. Thomas and his brothers and sisters experience the period of time when these dramatic changes begin to occur in German life. The family and the company must cope with these changes, and it turns out that this commitment to tradition, this conscious burgherism of the Buddenbrooks is already becoming a kind of brake. Buddenbrock is more decent, perhaps, than speculators; they cannot quickly use new forms of relationships that arise in the market. It’s the same inside the family: adherence to tradition is the source of endless dramas, which has absorbed the burgher spirit.

And no matter how we look at the life of the 3rd generation Buddenbrooks - they find themselves out of place in time, somehow in conflict with time, with the situation, and this leads to the decline of the family. The result of Hanno’s communication with other children is painful for him: his favorite place to live is under the piano in his mother’s living room, where he can listen to the music she plays, such a closed life.

(The last representative of the Buddenbrooks is Thomas's son, little Hanno; this weak boy falls ill and dies.)

This book is an analysis of family chronicles, one of the first seminal chronicles, the impact of changing eras on people's destinies. And this was after a long break in German literature, the first work of such a scale, such a level, such a depth of analysis. That's why Thomas Mann became a genius at the age of 25.

But gradually, when the first impressions and delights subsided, it began to emerge that there was a second bottom, a second level in this book.

On the one hand, this is a socio-historical chronicle telling about the life of Germany in the 19th century.

On the other hand, this work is built with other objectives. It was one of the first works of literature of the 20th century designed for at least two levels of reading. The second bottom, the second level is associated with the philosophical views of T. Mann, with the picture of the world that he creates for himself (Thomas Mann was interested in the highest level of understanding of reality).

If we look at the history of the Buddenbrooks family from a different angle, we will see that just as important a role as time and socio-historical changes, certain constants play in their destinies.

Mann's Buddenbrooks evolve from burgherism to artistry. Johann Buddenbrook Sr. is a 100% burgher. Ganno is 100% an artist.

For Mann, a burgher is not only a person of the 3rd estate, he is a person completely fused with the surrounding reality, living in an inextricable union with the outside world, deprived of what Thomas Mann denotes by the word “soul”, but not in the canonical sense of the word “soulless”, and the burgher completely lacks the artistic principle according to T. Mann, but not in the sense that these people are illiterate, deaf to beauty.

Old Johann is not only an educated man, but also lives by what he knows; but this is a person inextricably merged with the world in which he lives, who enjoys every minute of his existence, for him life on the physical plane is a great pleasure. All life plans. This is the type of people.

The opposite type are artists. This does not mean that these are people who paint pictures. This is a person who lives the life of the soul; for him, inner existence, spiritual life and the outer world seem to be separated from him by a harsh, high barrier. This is a person for whom contact with this outside world is painful and unacceptable.

Very often geniuses, very creatively gifted - they are artists. But not always. There are creative individuals with the worldview of a burgher. And there are ordinary people with the worldview of an artist, like Thomas Mann.

His first collection of short stories (it is called after the title of one of the stories included in it) is “Little Mister Friedemann”. This little Mr. Friedemann is a typical everyman, but this little everyman with the soul of an artist who lives inside himself, with his life of spirit, he is completely in the power of this artistic principle, although he does not produce any artistic activity, he only produces the impossibility of existing in this world, a feeling of impossibility of contact with other people. That is, for Thomas Mann these words “burgher” and “artist” have a very special meaning. And who does what professionally, whether he owns a company or not, it doesn’t matter. Whether he paints pictures or not is not important.

Showing this transformation, tragedy, and death of the Buddenbrook family, T. Mann also explains it as a process of accumulation of artistic qualities in the souls of the Buddenbrooks. which makes their existence in the surrounding reality more and more difficult, and then painful for them and deprives them of the opportunity to live. As for their professional hobbies, this does not play a special role here. Thomas is engaged in trade and is elected to the Senate. And his brother leaves the family, declaring himself an artist in the literal sense of the word.

The important thing is that they are both half “burgher” and “artist” in Mann’s sense of the word. And this half-heartedness prevents any of them from accomplishing anything in this life.

The state of unstable balance in which both Thomas and his brother find themselves becomes painful. On the one hand, Thomas is captivated by books. But when reading them, something repels him - this is the burgher beginning. And going to the Senate, starting to deal with the affairs of the company, he cannot deal with them, since the artistic principle cannot stand all this. Throwing begins. Thomas married Gerda, a girl belonging to another world; he felt spirituality and artistic beginnings in her. Nothing succeeded. Hanno’s son resides in his mother’s little world, and this separation from the world allows Hanno to exist within himself.

T. Mann makes sure that Hanno falls ill with typhus, and a crisis ensues. It consists of 2 elements: on the one hand, it approaches the lowest point, but from the lowest point it can begin to fall down. And Thomas Mann confronts Hanno with a choice; the predetermination of the book comes to the fore, since neither Balzac, nor Dickens, nor Galsworthy could afford such arbitrary treatment. Hanno lies in bed in the bedroom, straw is laid out in front of the windows to prevent the carriages from rattling. He feels very bad, and he suddenly sees a ray of sunlight breaking through the curtains, hears the muffled, but still noise of these carts along the street.

“And at this moment, if a person listens to the ringing, bright, slightly mocking call of the “voice of life,” if joy, love, energy, commitment to the motley and tough bustle awakens in him again, he will turn back and live. But if the voice life will make him shudder with fear and disgust, if in response to this cheerful, defiant cry he only shakes his head and waves it away, then it is clear to everyone - he will die."

And so Hanno seems to be in this situation. This is not caused by the disease itself, the crisis, not the typhus itself, but by the fact that Hanno at some point becomes scared, when he hears this voice of life, his return to this bright, motley, cruel reality is painful. He does not want to experience touching the surrounding being again, and then he dies, not because the disease is incurable.

If we look at what is behind this concept of burgherism and artistry, we see that behind them is Schopenhauer, first of all with his concept of the world as will and representation. And indeed, T. Mann at this time was very interested in the philosophy of Schopenhauer. And hence this principle - they abandon the principle of objective evolution. In these philosophies (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer) there is an opposite tendency - the search for absolute swings. The world is built on certain absolute principles, they are very different, but the principle is the same. According to Schopenhauer's system, there are two: will and representation. The will generates dynamics, and the idea creates statics. And the opposition “artist - burgher” is, as it were, a derivative of Schopenhauer’s idea. These are also some absolutes that characterize the internal quality of the human personality; they are not subject to time.

Old Johann Buddenbrook is an absolute burgher, not because he lives in his time, but because he is like that. Ganno is an absolute artist, because that's what he is. It’s just that the qualities inherent in the human soul do not change, but the situation shown by T. Mann is internal changes that can occur; can also happen in the opposite direction. Then after that he wrote a whole series of stories about how a simple burgher turns into an artist. This transformation can also occur: from a burgher to an artist, from an artist to a burgher, whatever you like, but these are some absolutes that are realized in the human soul either completely or relatively, but they exist.

That is, the system of the universe thus acquires a certain static character. And from this point of view, the novel "Buddenbrooks" takes on a completely different quality - it is not so much a socio-historical chronicle, it is a work in which some specific philosophical idea is realized. And therefore, from this point of view, it is tempting to call T. Mann’s novel philosophical. But it cannot be called philosophical, since it is not a philosophical narrative. This is an intellectual novel(analysis of philosophical ideas).

This concerns the literary side. As for the place of this novel in the context of world literature, it is obvious that “Buddenbrooks” opens a new stage in literary development not only with the type and form of narration, but also opens the next page of world literature, which begins to consciously build itself on philosophical absolutes when creating its picture peace.

Remaining a conservative pessimist who nevertheless believes in progress, Thomas Mann writes his second full-scale novel, “The Magic Mountain” (Der Zauberberg, 1924, English trans. 1927), which presents a grandiose panorama of the decline of European civilization. With the publication of this novel, Mann established himself as the leading writer of Weimar Germany.

The ambivalent attitude towards same-sex love, which he admires and which he simultaneously condemns, runs through many of the works of Thomas Mann. This novel is no exception to this.

The main character of The Magic Mountain, young engineer Hans Castorp, overcomes the obsession of his teenage years - all the same 14 years! - falling in love with a classmate in fulfilled love for a woman similar to this boy.

After the publication of The Magic Mountain, the writer published a special article, polemicizing with those who, not having had time to master new forms of literature, saw in the novel only a satire on morals in a privileged high-mountain sanatorium for pulmonary patients. The content of The Magic Mountain was not limited to those frank debates about the important social and political trends of the era that occupy dozens of pages of this novel.

An unremarkable engineer from Hamburg, Hans Kastorp, ends up in the Berghof sanatorium and gets stuck here for seven long years for quite complex and vague reasons, which by no means boil down to his love for the Russian Claudia Shosha. The educators and mentors of his immature mind are Lodovico Settembrini and Leo Nafta, whose disputes intersect many of the most important problems of Europe, which stands at a historical crossroads.

The time depicted by T. Mann in the novel is the era preceding the First World War. But this novel is filled with questions that have become extremely urgent after the war and revolution of 1918 in Germany.

Settembrini represents in the novel the noble pathos of old humanism and liberalism and is therefore much more attractive than his repulsive opponent Naphtha, who defends strength, cruelty, and the predominance in man and humanity of the dark instinctive principle over the light of reason. Hans Castorp, however, does not immediately give preference to his first mentor.

The resolution of their disputes cannot at all lead to a resolution of the ideological knots of the novel, although in the figure of Naphtha T. Mann reflected many social trends that led to the victory of fascism in Germany.

The reason for Castorp’s hesitation is not only the practical weakness of Settembrini’s abstract ideals, which lost their importance in the 20th century. support in reality. The reason is that the disputes between Settembrini and Naphtha do not reflect the complexity of life, just as they do not reflect the complexity of the novel.

Political liberalism and an ideological complex close to fascism (Nafta in the novel is not a fascist, but a Jesuit, dreaming of totalitarianism and the dictatorship of the church with the fires of the Inquisition, executions of heretics, the banning of free-thinking books, etc.), the writer expressed in a relatively traditional “representative” way . The only thing that is extraordinary is the emphasis placed on the clashes between Settembrini and Naphtha and the number of pages devoted to their disputes in the novel. But this very pressure and this extremeness are needed by the author in order to identify as clearly as possible for the reader some of the most important motives of the work.

The clash of distilled spirituality and rampant instincts occurs in “The Magic Mountain” not only in the disputes between two mentors, just as it is realized not only in political social programs in life.

The intellectual content of the novel is deep and expressed much more subtly. As a second layer, on top of what is written, giving living artistic concreteness the highest symbolic meaning (as it was given, for example, to the Magic Mountain itself, isolated from the outside world - a test flask where the experience of learning life is carried out), T. Mann conducts the most important themes for him, and the theme about the elementary, unbridled and instinctive, strong not only in the feverish visions of Naphtha, but also in life itself.

When Hans Castorp first walks along the corridor of the sanatorium, an unusual cough is heard behind one of the doors, “as if you were seeing the insides of a person.” Death does not fit into the Berghof sanatorium in the solemn evening dress in which the hero is accustomed to greeting him on the plain. But many aspects of the idle existence of the inhabitants of the sanatorium are marked in the novel by emphasized biologism. The large meals greedily devoured by sick and often half-dead people are terrifying. The inflated eroticism reigning here is terrifying. The disease itself begins to be perceived as a consequence of promiscuity, lack of discipline, and inadmissible revelry of the bodily principle.

Through looking at illness and death (Hans Castorp’s visit to the rooms of the dying), and at the same time at birth, the change of generations (chapters dedicated to memories of his grandfather’s house and the font), through the hero’s persistent reading of books about the circulatory system, the structure of the skin, etc. . and so on. (“I made him experience the phenomenon of medicine as an event,” the author later wrote) Thomas Mann talks about the same topic that is most important to him.

Gradually and gradually, the reader grasps the similarity of various phenomena, gradually realizes that the mutual struggle between chaos and order, bodily and spiritual, instincts and reason occurs not only in the Berghof sanatorium, but also in universal existence and in human history.

Intellectual novel "Doctor Faustus"(1947) - the pinnacle of the intellectual novel genre. The author himself said the following about this book: “Secretly, I treated Faustus as my spiritual testament, the publication of which no longer plays a role and with which the publisher and executor can do as they please.”

To make the novel easier to understand, T. Mann creates “The History of Doctor Faustus”, excerpts from which may help to better understand the intent of the novel:

“If my previous works acquired a monumental character, then it turned out beyond expectation, without intention”

“My book is basically a book about the German soul.”

“The main gain is when introducing the figure of a narrator, the ability to sustain the narrative in a double time plan, polyphonically interweaving events that shock the writer at the very moment of work, into the events about which he writes.

Here it is difficult to discern the transition of the tangible-real into the illusory perspective of the drawing. This editing technique is part of the very design of the book.”

“If you are writing a novel about an artist, there is nothing more vulgar than to praise the art, the genius, the work. What was needed here was reality, concreteness. I had to study music."

“The most difficult of the tasks is a convincingly reliable, illusory-realistic description of the satanic-religious, demonically pious, but at the same time something very strict and downright criminal mockery of art: refusal of beats, even of an organized sequence of sounds... »

“I carried with me a volume of Schwanks from the 16th century - after all, my story always went back to this era, so in other places an appropriate flavor in the language was required.”

“The main motive of my novel is the proximity of infertility, the organic doom of the era, predisposing to a deal with the devil.”

“I was bewitched by the idea of a work that, being from beginning to end a confession and self-sacrifice, knows no mercy for pity and, pretending to be art, at the same time goes beyond the scope of art and is true reality.”

“Was there a prototype of Hadrian? That was the difficulty, to invent the figure of a musician who could take a plausible place among real figures. He is a collective image, a man who carries within himself all the pain of the era.

I was captivated by his coldness, his distance from life, his lack of soul... It is curious that at the same time he was almost deprived of my local appearance, visibility, physicality... Here it was necessary to observe the greatest restraint in local concretization, which threatened to immediately belittle and vulgarize the spiritual plane with its symbolism and ambiguity.”

“The epilogue took 8 days. The last lines of the Doctor are Zeitblom’s heartfelt prayer for his friend and the Fatherland, which I have heard for a long time. I mentally transported myself through the 3 years and 8 months I lived under the stress of this book. On that May morning, when the war was in full swing, I took up my pen.”

"Doctor Faustus" is a landmark work, one of the most famous, complex, one of the most consistent versions of literature. The life story of Adrian Leverkühn is a metaphor for important, rather abstract things. Mann chooses a rather complex structure, a frame that cracks under the weight. Firstly, Adrian is perceived as the incarnation of Faust (who sold his soul to the devil). If we take a closer look, we will see that all the canons are observed. Mann speaks of a different Faust, by no means the same as that of Goethe. He is driven by pride and coldness of soul. Thomas helps remember from a folk book of the late 16th century.

Mann is a master of the leitmotif. Coldness of soul, and whoever is cold becomes the prey of the devil. (Here is a set of associations, Dante comes to mind). Meeting with hetero Esmeralda (there is a butterfly that mimics - changes color). She rewards Leverkühn with a disease that also hides in his body. Esmeralda warned that she was sick. He tests himself to see how far he can go. This is egocentrum, admiration. Fate gives him chances. Last Chance Echo is a boy who gets meningitis. He fell in love with this boy. If this world allows suffering, then this world stands on evil, and I will worship this evil. And then the devil comes. The story is kept in a certain vein. Leverkühn paid with his own disintegration, but when this music is performed, it plunges the listener into horror.

Along with the theme of Faust, the educated German reader sees that Leverkühn's biography is a paraphrase on the theme of Friedrich the Beggars. Years of life: 1885-1940. The stages of life are the same. Leverkühn speaks with quotes from Nietzsche (especially the meeting where he talks about art). But the Faustian motif expands the image of Leverkühn.

Mann began writing notes about Leverkühn in 1943 and finished in 1945. Faustian layer (the time of the formation of these legends is 15-16 centuries) Thus. The chain of length of the novel is very long, from the 15th century to 1940. New time in history is counted from the beginning of the era of great geographical discoveries (late 15th - 16th century).

The 16th century is the century in which the Reformation movement began. The Faustian motif is not just a fairy tale, it is one of the first attempts to comprehend the new things that appear in a person’s character when the world changes and the person himself changes. 1945 is a milestone in modern history. Thomas Mann began writing the novel in 1943. This time coincides. Zeitblanc (?) completes his narrative in 1945. "God have mercy on my friend, my country!" - the last words in Zeitblanc's notes. The novel's time frame clearly shows that Mann is not considering the outcome of 1945.

1885 – the year of Leverkühn’s birth – the year the formation of the empire began. The Faustian motif expands the time frame of the novel to the 16th century, when a new attitude to the world and to oneself is formed, when the development of bourgeois society begins.

The religious question is the mood, the ideology of the 3rd estate. Mann writes about these aspects: “My self” can establish itself in this world.

This is a highlight of a person, a somewhat self-sufficient individual. This is where it all begins and everything comes to a crash in 1945. Essentially, Mann assesses the fate of civilization. The final catastrophe is the assessment of an era. According to Mann, this is natural.

The self-sufficiency of the individual began to drive the progress of this world, but at the same time began to lay a mine of selfishness.

Where is the line between self-love and indifference to others? Leverkühn's coldness is selfishness. Mann evaluates one of the realized life options. Leverkühn could not overcome this coldness. Leverkühn's love for music, nephew, etc. sometimes his love for himself overpowers him. It was this point of view that led to his downfall.

Selfishness gave society enormous opportunities and it also led to its collapse. Art and philosophy led to the “ossification” of the world, to its collapse.

What quality of music did Leverkühn write? At one time he wrote music according to Stravinsky, then he came across Schomberg, where everything was built on harmony, when as we got closer to the 20th century, harmony was most often not used, moreover, they were disharmonious. This is materialized not only in music, but also in the philosophy of music. And Leverkühn wants to create a work that “will lift Beethoven’s 9th symphony.” And Beethoven’s 9th symphony follows all its canons and the motto from Schiller: “From suffering to joy.” And Leverkühn wants to write music, the epigraph of which would be “through joy to suffering.” It's the other way around.

The 9th Symphony is one of the highest achievements of art, glorifying man. Through drama, through tragedy, a person comes to the highest harmony.

Nietzsche was just creating philosophy, incl. and philosophy of art, cat. also worked to destroy harmony. From Nietzsche's point of view, different eras give rise to different types of art.

Accordingly, the disaster of 1943-1945. - the result of long-term development. It is not for nothing that this novel is considered one of the best novels of the 20th century, one of the most important.

With this novel, Mann drew a line not only in his work (after which he created a number of works), he drew a line in the development of German art. This novel is incredibly large-scale, and as a result, it comprehends a colossal period in the history of mankind).

If previous novels were educational, then in Doctor Faustus there is no one to educate. This is truly a novel of the end, in which various themes are taken to the extreme: the hero dies, Germany dies. Shows the dangerous limit to which art has come, and the last line to which humanity has approached.

After 1945, a new era begins from all points of view, socially, politically, economically, philosophically, culturally. Thomas Mann understood this before anyone else.

In 1947, the novel was published. And then the question arose: what will happen? After the war, this question occupied everyone and everything. There were many possible answers. On the one hand there is optimism, and on the other there is pessimism, but pessimism is not straightforward. Humanity has begun to behave and feel “more modest”, primarily because, in connection with discoveries in science and technology, a means is being revealed to people how to kill their own kind.

Outstanding German writer Heinrich Mann (1871 – 1950) Born into an old burgher family, he studied at the University of Berlin. During the Weimar Republic he was a member (from 1926) and then chairman of the literature department of the Prussian Academy of Arts. In 1933-40 in exile in France. Since 1936, chairman of the Committee of the German Popular Front, created in Paris. Since 1940 he lived in the USA (Los Angeles).

M.'s early works bear traces of the contradictory influences of the classical traditions of German and French literature, and modernist movements of the end of the century. The problem of art and the artist is considered by M. through the prism of social contrasts and contradictions of modern society.

In the novel “The Promised Land” (1900), the collective image of the bourgeois world is presented in tones of satirical grotesque. M.'s individualistic, decadent hobbies were reflected in the trilogy “Goddesses” (1903).

In M.'s subsequent novels, the realistic principle is strengthened. The novel “Teacher Gnus” (1905) is an exposure of the Prussian drill that permeated the system of youth education and the entire legal order of Wilhelmine Germany.

The novel "Small Town" (1909) in the spirit of cheerful irony and tragicomic buffoonery depicts the democratic community of an Italian town. Since the beginning of the 10s of the 20th century, M.'s journalistic and literary-critical activities have been developing (articles "Spirit and Action", "Voltaire and Goethe", both - 1910; pamphlet "Reichstag", 1911; essay "Zola", 1915).

A month before the start of World War I (1914-18), M. finished one of his most significant works - the novel “Loyal Subject” (1914, Russian translation from the manuscript 1915; first edition in Germany 1918). It gives a deeply realistic and at the same time symbolically grotesque image of the morals of the Kaiser's empire. The hero Diederich Gesling - a bourgeois businessman, a rabid chauvinist - anticipates the Hitlerite type in many ways. "Loyal Subjects" opens the "Empire" trilogy, continued in the novels "The Poor" (1917) and "The Head" (1925), which sums up an entire historical period in the life of various strata of German society on the eve of the war.

These and other novels by M., created before the beginning of the 30s, are inferior in realistic clarity and depth to The Loyal Subject, but they are all marked by sharp criticism of the predatory essence of capitalism. The journalism of M. developed in the same direction in the 20s and early 30s. M.'s disappointment in the ability of the bourgeois republic to change public life in the spirit of true democracy gradually leads him to understand the historical role of socialism. In the practice of joint anti-fascist struggle, M. in exile draws closer to the leaders of the KKE, establishes himself in the positions of militant humanism, and realizes in a new way the historical role of the proletariat (article “The Path of the German Workers”); Collections of articles by M. “Hatred” (1933), “The Day Will Come” (1936), and “Courage” (1939) were directed against Hitlerism.

In the historical duology “The Young Years of King Henry IV” in 1936 and “The Mature Years of King Henry IV” in 1938, he managed to create a convincing and vivid image of an ideal monarch. The historical narrative is built by the writer as a biography of the hero from childhood to the tragic end of his life. The very names of the novels that created the duology speak about this.

The historical background of the dilogy is the French Renaissance; the hero Henry IV, “a humanist on horseback, with a sword in his hand,” is revealed as a bearer of historical progress. The novel has many direct parallels with modern times.

Henry’s biography opens with a significant phrase: “The boy was small, but the mountains were up to the sky.” In the future, he had to grow up and find his special place in the world. The daydreaming and carelessness characteristic of his young years, as the work progresses, gives way to wisdom in his mature years. But at that very moment when all the formidable dangers of life were revealed to him, he declared to fate that he accepted its challenge and would forever preserve both his original courage and his innate gaiety.

Traveling across the country towards Paris, Henry was never alone. “The entire group of his young like-minded people, who also sought adventure and were as pious and daring as he, closed around him, carried him forward with incredible speed.” Everyone surrounding the young king was no more than twenty years old. They did not know troubles, misfortunes and defeats and “did not want to recognize either earthly institutions or the powers that be.” Full of conviction that his cause was just, Henry retained in his memory the poem of his friend, Agrippa d'Aubigné, and decided "that he would never cause men to lie slain on the battlefield, paying with their lives for the expansion of his kingdom." . And also, only he fully realized that “he and his comrades can hardly count on the company of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his opinion, they had no more hope for such an honor than Catholics.” In this he differed significantly from many Protestants, zealots of the true faith, and Catholics, who were similar in their desire for superiority over the rest - heretics. Henry never had such radical inclinations, which he will tell people about in the future.

But nevertheless, after becoming acquainted with the Parisian court, its morals and rules, some of the young king’s early convictions had to disappear, and some had to once again prove their accuracy and justice. Only one feeling that living was more important than taking revenge accompanied him throughout his entire life, and Henry always adhered to this conviction.

The next stage of his life was a stay in Paris, the capital of the French state, he began with an acquaintance with the Louvre and the people who lived in this palace. There, “his critical wit did not fail him, and no ostentatious brilliance could cloud the vigilance of his gaze.” In this environment, Henry learned to remain calm and cheerful in the most difficult situations, and also acquired the ability to laugh at his like-minded people in order to earn the favor and much-needed trust of the royal court. But then he had no idea how many more times he would have to experience loneliness and become a victim of betrayal, and therefore “he argued, turning his bold and future-oriented, although not yet minted by life, face to the remnant of the past century sitting in front of him (Admiral Coligny).” , calling his generation youth and seeking to unite his country against its enemy. Looking forward confidently, he laughed cheerfully and sincerely. And this laughter helped him many more times in the future, in those hours when Henry, who knew hatred, appreciated the great benefits of hypocrisy. “Laugh in the face of dangers” was the young king’s motto for the rest of his life.

But, of course, St. Bartholomew’s Night greatly influenced Henry’s views and psychology. In the morning a completely different Henry appeared in the Louvre than the one who had been cheerfully feasting in the great hall that evening. He said goodbye to friendly communication between people, to a free, courageous life. This Henry in the future “will be submissive, will be completely different, hiding under a deceptive guise the former Henry, who always laughed, loved tirelessly, did not know how to hate, did not know suspicion.” He looked at his subjects, common people, with completely different eyes and realized that it was much easier and faster to achieve evil from them than to achieve something good. He saw that he “acted as if people could be restrained by demands of decency, ridicule, frivolous favor.” True, after this he did not change his humanistic beliefs and chose a difficult path, that is, one whose goal is still to achieve goodness and mercy from people.

However, Henry still had to go through all the circles of hell, endure humiliation, insults and insults, but one special feature inherent in his character helped him get through this - the awareness of his chosenness and understanding of his true destiny. Therefore, he bravely walked along his life’s path, confident that he must go through everything that was destined for him by fate. Bartholomew's Night gives him not only the knowledge of hatred and “hell,” but also the understanding that after the death of his mother, Queen Joan, and the main zealot of the true faith, Admiral Coligny, he had no one else to rely on and he had to help himself out. Cunning becomes his law, because he has learned that it is cunning that rules this life. He skillfully hid his feelings from others, and only “under the cover of night and darkness, Navarre’s face finally expresses his true feelings: his mouth curled, his eyes sparkled with hatred.”

“Misfortune can provide unfinished paths to the knowledge of life,” the author writes in the moralite for one of the chapters. In fact, after numerous humiliations, Henry learned to laugh at himself, “as if he were a stranger,” and one of his few friends, D’Elbeuf, says about him: “He is a stranger going through a harsh school.”

Having gone through this school of misfortunes called the Louvre, and finally breaking free, Henry once again confirms his own conclusions that religion does not play a special role." "Whoever does his duty is of my faith, but I profess the religion of those who are brave and kind,” and the king’s most important task is to strengthen and unite the people and the state. This is another difference between him and other monarchs - his desire for power not in order to satisfy his own interests and gain benefits for himself, but in order to make his state and subjects happy and protected.

But in order to achieve this, the king must not only be brave, because there are many brave people in the world, the main thing is to be kind and courageous, which is not given to everyone. This is exactly what Henry was able to learn in life. He more easily excused others for their misdeeds than himself, and also acquired a rare quality for that time that was new and unfamiliar to the people - humanity - which made people doubt the strength of their familiar world of debt obligations, payments and cruelty. As he approached the throne, he showed the world that one can be strong while remaining humane, and that by defending clarity of mind one also defends the state.

The education he received during the years of captivity prepared him to become a humanist. The knowledge of the human soul, which was given to him so hard, is the most precious knowledge of the era in which he will be sovereign.

Despite such a stormy life that Henry led, and all his many hobbies, only one name played a really big role in his youth. The Queen of Navarre, or simply Margot, can be called a fatal figure in Henry's life. He loved and hated her, “you can part with her, just like with anyone else; but her image was imprinted on his entire youth, like magic or a curse, both of which capture the very essence of life, not like the sublime muses.” Margot did not give him special gifts, did not abandon her family for him, but all the tragic and beautiful moments of the youth of King Henry IV are connected with her.

But even after marrying the Valois princess, Henry did not become a serious enemy in the eyes of the royal house and the powerful year of Guise, he was not a tragic figure and was not in everyone's sight, in the center of events. And so, during a clash with the royal army, a turning point comes. “He even becomes something more: a fighter for the faith in the image and likeness of biblical heroes. And all people’s doubts about him disappear. After all, he no longer fights for the sake of land or money and not for the sake of the throne: he sacrifices everything for the glory of God; with unshakable determination he takes the side of the weak and oppressed, and on him is the blessing of the King of Heaven. He has a clear gaze, like a true fighter for the faith.”

At this time, he takes his biggest and most significant step on the path to the throne. But the final triumph will not only be purchased at the cost of his own sacrifices: “Henry witnesses the sacrifice of people whom he would like to save. On the battlefield of Ark, King Henry, drenched in sweat after so many battles, weeps to the song of victory. These are tears of joy; he sheds others for those killed and for everything that ended with them. On this day his youth ended.”

As we see, his road to the throne was filled with harsh schools and trials, but his true success lies in the fact that he had enormous innate strength of character, expressed in the belief that this long road, despite all adversities, is victorious, that Through tragic mistakes and upheavals, Henry slowly moves along the path of moral and intellectual improvement, and that at the end of this road, the young king will definitely meet a just and faithful end.

M.'s last books - the novels "Lidice" (1943), "Breath" (1949), "Reception in the World" (published 1956), "The Sad Story of Frederick the Great" (fragments published in the GDR in 1958-1960) are marked by great acuteness of the social criticism and at the same time a sharp complexity of literary manner.

The result of M.'s journalism is the book "Review of the Century" (1946), which combines the genres of memoir literature, political chronicle, and autobiography. The book, which provides a critical assessment of the era, is dominated by the idea of the decisive influence of the USSR on world events.

In the post-war years, M. maintained close ties with the GDR and was elected the first president of the German Academy of Arts in Berlin. M.'s move to the GDR was prevented by his death. National Prize of the GDR (1949).

Topic 3. Literature of Germany at the turn of the century in the first half of the 20th century.

1. The sociocultural situation and historical landmarks that determined the nature of the development of German culture. The formation of the world system of monopoly capitalism in Germany was belated, by the beginning of the 20th century. the transition is complete. Germany has surpassed England in economics. With the reign of Wilhelm II from 1888, an aggressive policy was established under the slogan “to achieve a place in the sun for Germany.” It was also a slogan that united the empire. Ideological foundations - the teachings of German philosophers (Nietzsche, Spengler, Schopenhauer)

In the popular social democratic movement there is a tendency towards gradual peaceful resolution of conflicts, opposed to the revolutionary theory of Marxism. For a short period of time, apparent calm was established, but in literature there was a premonition of the apocalypse. Impact of the 1905 revolution led to the strengthening of social democratic ideology and the growth of the labor movement in 1911. - a clash of interests between France and Germany in North America, which almost led to war.

The Balkan crisis and the First World War of 1914, the revolution of 1917 in Russia led to mass strikes and the November people's revolution in Germany (1918). The revolutionary situation was finally suppressed in 1923. The post-war revolutionary upsurge gave way... to the stabilization of capitalism.

1925 - Weimar bourgeois republic, Germany is actively involved in the process of Americanization of Europe. After the need and disasters of the war, the need for entertainment was natural (which caused the development of the corresponding industry, the cultural market, and the emergence of mass culture). The general characteristic of the period is the “golden twenties”.

The 1930s that followed were called the “black” years. 1929 - crisis of overproduction in America, paralyzing the world economy. In Germany there is an economic and political crisis - a change of governments that have no control over the situation. Unemployment is massive. The National Socialist Party is gaining strength. The confrontation between the forces of the developed KPD (Communist Party of Germany) and the NSP (National Socialist Party) ended in victory for the latter. 1933 - Hitler came to power. The militarization of the economy has become the main means of social stability. At the same time, cultural life became politicized. The era of literary isms is over. The era of reaction and the fight against the undesirable began. From this period, German literature developed in anti-fascist emigration. The Second World War.

2. Literature at the turn of the century and the 1st half of the 20th was marked by a crisis of bourgeois culture, the spokesman of which was F. Nietzsche.

In the 1890s, there was a move away from naturalism. 1894 - Hauptmann’s naturalistic drama “The Weavers”. A feature of German naturalism is “Consistent naturalism,” which required a more accurate reflection of objects that changed along with lighting and position. The “second style” developed by Schlaf involves dividing reality into many momentary perceptions. “a photographic image of the era” could not reveal the invisible signs of the approaching new AGE. In addition, a sign of the new times was a protest against the concept of a person’s complete dependence on the environment. Naturalism fell into decline, but its techniques were preserved in critical realism

Impressionism was not widespread in Germany. German writers were almost not attracted to the analysis of infinitely variable states. Neo-romantic research into specific psychological states has not often been undertaken. German neo-romanticism included features of symbolism, but there was almost no mystical symbolism. Usually the romantic two-dimensionality of the conflict between the eternal and the everyday, the explicable and the mysterious was emphasized.

The predominant direction in the first half of the 20th century. was expressionism. The leading genre is “scream drama”

Along with the “-isms” at the turn of the century to the end of the 20s. A layer of proletarian literature was actively taking shape. Later (in the 30s) socialist prose developed in emigration (A. Segers and Becher's poetry).

A popular genre at this time was the novel. In addition to the intellectual novel, there were historical and social novels in German literature, which developed a technique close to the intellectual novel, and also continued the traditions of German satire.

Heinrich Mann(1871 - 1950) worked in the genre of socially revealing novel (influence of French literature). The main period of creativity is 1900-1910. The novel “The Loyal Subject” (1914) brought fame to the writer. In the author’s own words, “The novel depicts the previous stage of that leader who then achieved power.” The hero is the embodiment of loyalty, the essence of the phenomenon, embodied in a living character.

The novel is a biography of a hero who has worshiped power since childhood: father, teacher, policeman. The author uses biographical details to enhance the properties of the hero’s nature; He is a slave and a despot at the same time. The basis of his psychology is sycophancy and a thirst for power to humiliate the weak. The story about the hero records his constantly changing social position (second style!). The mechanical nature of the hero’s actions, gestures, and words conveys the automatism and mechanical nature of society.

The author creates an image according to the laws of caricature, deliberately shifting the proportions, sharpening and exaggerating the characteristics of the characters. The heroes of G. Mann are characterized by the mobility of masks = caricature. All of the above together is G. Mann’s “geometric style” as one of the variants of convention: the author balances on the brink of authenticity and implausibility.

Lion Feuchtwanger(1884 - 1954) - philosopher interested in the East. He became famous for his historical and social novels. In his work, the historical novel, more than the social novel, depended on the technique of the intellectual novel. Common features

* Transferring modern problems that concern the writer to the setting of the distant past, modeling them in a historical plot - modernization of history (the plot, facts, description of life, national color are historically accurate, modern problems are introduced into the relationship of the heroes).

* Historically costumed modernity, a novel of indirections and allegories, where modern events and persons are depicted in a conventional historical shell “False Nero” - L. Feuchtwanger, “The Cases of Mr. Julius Caesar” by B. Brecht).

The term was proposed in 1924 by T. Mann. “Intellectual novel” became a realistic genre, embodying one of the features of realism of the 20th century. - an acute need for interpretation of life, its comprehension and interpretation. Exceeding the need for “telling” -. In world literature they worked in the genre of intellectual novel; EL Bulgakov (Russia), K. Chapek (Czech Republic), W. Faulkner and T. Wolf (America), but T. Mann stood at the origins.

A characteristic phenomenon of the time has become the modification of the historical novel: the past becomes a springboard for clarifying the social and political mechanisms of modernity.

A common principle of construction is multi-layering, the presence in a single artistic whole of layers of reality far removed from each other.

In the first half of the 20th century, a new understanding of myth emerged. It acquired historical features, i.e. was perceived as a product of a distant past, illuminating repeating patterns in the life of mankind. The appeal to myth expanded the time boundaries of the work. In addition, it provided the opportunity for artistic play, countless analogies and parallels, unexpected correspondences that explain modernity.

The German “intellectual novel” was philosophical, firstly, because there was a tradition of philosophizing in artistic creativity, and secondly, because it strived for systematicity. The cosmic concepts of German novelists did not pretend to be a scientific interpretation of the world order. According to the wishes of its creators, “the intellectual novel was to be perceived not as philosophy, but as art.

Laws of construction of the “Intellectual Novel”.

* The presence of several non-merging layers of reality (in German I.R) is philosophical in construction - mandatory presence of different levels of life, correlated with each other, assessed and measured by each other. Artistic tension lies in combining these layers into a single whole.

* A special interpretation of time in the 20th century (free breaks in action, movements into the past and future, arbitrary acceleration and slowdown of time) also influenced the intellectual novel. Here time is not only discrete, but also torn into qualitatively different pieces. Only in German literature is such a tense relationship observed between the time of history and the time of personality. Different hypostases of time are often spread across different spaces. Internal tension in a German philosophical novel is largely generated by the effort that is needed to keep time intact and to unite the actually disintegrated time.

* Special psychologism: An “intellectual novel” is characterized by an enlarged image of a person. The author's interest is focused not on clarifying the hidden inner life of the hero (following L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky), but on showing him as a representative of the human race. The image becomes less developed psychologically, but more voluminous. The mental life of the characters received a powerful external regulator; it is not so much the environment as the events of world history, the general state of the world (T Mann (“Doctor Faustus”): "...not character, but peace").

Thomas Mann(1873 -1955) The Mann brothers were born into the family of a wealthy grain merchant. Even after the death of their father, the family was quite wealthy. Therefore, the transformation from burgher to bourgeois took place before the eyes of the writer.

Wilhelm II spoke about the great changes to which he was leading Germany, but T. Mann saw its decline.

The Decline of One Family is the subtitle of the first novel. "Budennybroki"(1901). The peculiarity of the genre is a family chronicle (traditions of the river novel!) with elements of epic (historical-analytical approach). The novel absorbed the experience of 19th century realism. and partly the technique of impressionistic writing. Myself T. Mann considered himself a continuator of the naturalistic movement. At the center of the novel is the fate of three generations of Buddenbrooks. The older generation is still at peace with itself and the outside world. Inherited moral and commercial principles lead the second generation into conflict with life. Tony Buddenbrook does not marry Morten for commercial reasons but remains unhappy; her brother Christian prefers independence and turns into a decadent. Thomas energetically maintains the appearance of bourgeois well-being, but fails because the external form that one cares about no longer corresponds to either the state or the content.

After the First World War, T. Mann took the position of an outside observer for some time. In 1918 (the year of the revolution!) he composed idylls in prose and poetry. But, having rethought the historical significance of the revolution, he finished the educational novel in 1924 "Magic Mountain"(4 books). In the 1920s T. Mann becomes one of those writers who, under the influence of the war, the post-war era, and under the influence of the emerging German fascism, felt it was their duty to “not to bury your head in the sand in the face of reality, but to fight on the side of those who want to give human meaning to the earth”. In 1939.v. - Nobel Prize, 1936... - emigrated to Switzerland, then to the USA, where he was actively involved in anti-fascist propaganda. The period was marked by work on the tetralogy "Joseph and his brothers"(1933-1942) - a myth-novel, where the hero is engaged in conscious government activities.

Intellectual novel "Doctor Faustus"(1947) - the pinnacle of the intellectual novel genre. The author himself said the following about this book: “Secretly, I treated Faustus as my spiritual testament, the publication of which no longer plays a role and with which the publisher and executor can do as they please».

“Doctor Faustus” is a novel about the tragic fate of a composer who agreed to a conspiracy with the devil not for the sake of knowledge, but for the sake of unlimited possibilities in musical creativity. Reckoning is death and the inability to love (the influence of Freudianism!).. To facilitate understanding of the novel by T. Mann E 19.49T. creates “The Story of Doctor Faustus”, excerpts from which may help to better understand the concept of the novel.

“If my previous works acquired a monumental character, then it turned out beyond expectation, without intention”

“My book is basically a book about the German soul.”

Here it is difficult to discern the transition of the tangible-real into the illusory perspective of the drawing. This editing technique is part of the very design of the book.”

“If you are writing a novel about an artist, there is nothing more vulgar than to praise the art, the genius, the work. What was needed here was reality, concreteness. I had to study music."

“I carried with me a volume of Schwanks from the 16th century - after all, my story always went back to this era, so in other places an appropriate flavor in the language was required.”

“The main motive of my novel is the proximity of infertility, the organic doom of the era, predisposing to a deal with the devil.”

“Was there a prototype of Hadrian? That was the difficulty, to invent the figure of a musician who could take a plausible place among real figures. He. - a collective image of a person who carries within himself all the pain of the era.

“The epilogue took 8 days. The Doctor's last lines are Zeitblom's heartfelt prayer. for friend and Fatherland, which I have heard for a long time. I mentally transported myself through the 3 years and 8 months I lived under the stress of this book. On that May morning, when the war was in full swing, I took up my pen.”

Topic 4. English literature of the turn of the century and the first half of the 20th century.

1. Social situation and philosophical foundations of literature at the turn of the century. The social situation of the period - under the influence of the Victorian crisis (during the reign of Queen Victorine 1837-1901) it was criticized as a system of spiritual and aesthetic values. The great compromise between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie did not bring harmony. In the period 1870-1890, Great Britain entered the fold of imperialism, which led to an intensification of political and social activity, as well as the polarization of social forces, and the rise of the labor movement. The activation of reformist ideas led to the emergence of a socialist attitude (Fabian society). England is involved in colonial wars, which were a consequence of the loss of world prestige.

Participation in the First World War. 1916 - uprising in Ireland, which turned into civil war. As a consequence of the event, the appearance of literature of the “lost generation” (Oldinghock “Death of a Hero”) and modernist literature, the priority direction of which is experimentation with form.

Literatures at the turn of the century were as follows:

The popularity of G. Spencer's ideas (social Darwinism), which differed from Victorian norms and provided man with society (Biological understanding of social laws, naturalistic source of art - in the needs of the psyche, understanding of art as part of a game that puts man on par with animals).

* Theory of D. Fraser (Head of the Department of Social Anthropology). His work “The Golden Bough” substantiates the evolution of human consciousness from the tragic to the religious and scientific. The theory paid attention to the features of primitive consciousness. She had a greater influence on the development of modernist literature.

* John Ruskin's concept of art and beauty, which served as the basis for aestheticism. In his “Lectures on Art” (1870) he said that beauty is an objective property

* The teachings of S. Freud and other philosophers of modern times

The best philosophical books. Smart books. An intellectual novel.
Books are not for everyone...

📖 The cult novel by the English writer George Orwell, which became the canon of the dystopian genre. It contains fear, despair and the fight against the system that inspire resistance. The author depicted the possible future of humanity as a totalitarian hierarchical system based on sophisticated physical and spiritual enslavement, permeated with universal fear and hatred.
📖 “The Idiot” is one of the most famous and most humanistic works of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.“The main idea...” wrote F. M. Dostoevsky about his novel “The Idiot,” “to portray a positively beautiful person. There is nothing more difficult than this in the world...”"Idiot". A novel in which Dostoevsky’s creative principles are fully embodied, and his amazing mastery of plot reaches true flourishing. The bright and almost painfully talented story of the unfortunate Prince Myshkin, the frantic Parfen Rogozhin and the desperate Nastasya Filippovna, filmed and staged many times, still fascinates the reader.
📖 “The Brothers Karamazov” is one of the few successful attempts in world literature to combine the fascination of storytelling with the depths of philosophical thought. The philosophy and psychology of “crime and punishment”, the dilemma of “socialization of Christianity”, the eternal struggle between “God” and “devilish” in the souls of people - these are the main ideas of this brilliant work. The novel touches on deep questions about God, freedom, and morality. This is Dostoevsky's last novel, it concentrates all the artistic power of the writer and the depth of the insights of the religious thinker.

📖 An interesting novel. I like it. Well written, lots to think about.From the first pages you are carried away by the author's style. The book was written in a pseudo-neutral style and permeated with irony. If you fail to read between the lines, you will be outraged by such political fiction. If you can see deeper, you will understand that submission can lead to something other than that.I think that the emphasis here is not so much on politics, but on internal experiences. The outside world becomes absurd, controlled by the powers that be, the media, it changes instantly and the average person can only take everything that happens for granted. And since everyone becomes such a passive recipient, that same humility is born.
📖 A chamber novel about repentance, regret and lost love. 46-year-old Florent-Claude Labrouste suffers another collapse in his relationship with his mistress. Frustrated and lonely, he tries to treat his depression with a drug that increases serotonin levels in the blood, but it comes at a high price. And the only thing that still gives meaning to Labrouste’s joyless existence is the insane hope of returning the woman he loved and lost.

📖 “What kind of a bitch life is this...”This is a book about how we live the lives of our parents, trying to correct their mistakes or fulfill hidden purposes. It is a cry of pain that lives in the soul of everyone who does not have the courage to live their own life. And when, at the end of your life, you realize that you are about to lose your mind, you want to once again rewatch all the events of your life, no matter what they were. To experience and realize with bitterness that everything could have turned out differently. After all, as you know, this is the biggest regret in one’s declining years.Fear of being brave, fear of following your true desires. It is he who is the cause of all our troubles. You can read this book to confirm this once again.
📖 The novel by the outstanding Catalan writer Jaume Cabret “The Shadow of the Eunuch” is a funny and sad story of a sentimental and amorous art lover, a scion of the ancient Gensan family, who, in search of the Path, Truth and Life, devoted his student years to the armed struggle for justice. "Shadow of the Eunuch" is a novel riddled with literary and musical allusions. Like Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, the structure of which he mirrors, the book is a kind of “double requiem.” It is dedicated to the "memory of the angel", Teresa, and sounds like a requiem for the main character, Miquel Genzana, for himself. The story sounds like a dying confession. The hero found himself in the house where he spent his childhood (by a cruel twist of fate, the family nest turned into a fashionable restaurant). Like Berg's concerto, the novel follows the fates of all the loved and lost beings associated with the house of Gensan.

📖 Perhaps the best book not only of 2015, but of the decade. A must read. Superbly written! Read in one go!The novel, which Pulitzer Prize winner Donna Tartt wrote for more than 10 years, is a huge epic canvas about the power of art and how it - sometimes not at all in the way we want it - can turn our entire lives upside down. 13-year-old Theo Decker miraculously survived the explosion that killed his mother. Abandoned by his father, without a single soul mate in the whole world, he wanders around foster homes and other people's families - from New York to Las Vegas - and his only consolation, which, however, almost leads to his death, is the money he stole from museum masterpiece of the Dutch old master. This is an amazing book.
📖 Robert Langdon arrives at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao at the invitation of friend and former student Edmond Kirsch. A billionaire and computer guru, he is known for his amazing discoveries and predictions. And this evening, Kirsch is going to “change all modern scientific understanding of the world” by answering two main questions that have troubled humanity throughout history: Where do we come from? What awaits us? However, before Edmond can make a statement, the luxurious reception turns into chaos.
📖 The main character of the book is Gabriel Wells. He is busy writing books. Or rather, I was doing it. That night he was killed. And now he is busy, in the guise of a wandering spirit, trying to find out who did this to him.
📖 Agnetha Pleyel is a well-known figure in the cultural life of Scandinavia: author of plays and novels, poet, literary prize winner, professor of drama, literary critic, journalist. Her books have been translated into 20 languages. The main character of the story “Surviving Winter in Stockholm” (1997) is going through a painful divorce from her husband and, in order to better understand and survive what is happening, begins to keep a diary. Since the heroine is a literary critic, ideas from world culture are organically woven into her everyday life and thoughts about life. Records about the problems that concern the heroine, about her relationships with men, memories are filled with echoes of psychoanalysis and obvious or hidden allusions.

American colleagues explained to me that the low level of general culture and school education in their country is a deliberate achievement for economic purposes. The fact is that, after reading books, an educated person becomes a worse buyer: he buys less washing machines and cars, and begins to prefer Mozart or Van Gogh, Shakespeare or theorems to them. The economy of a consumer society suffers from this and, above all, the income of the owners of life - so they strive to prevent culture and education (which, in addition, prevent them from manipulating the population as a herd devoid of intelligence). IN AND. Arnold, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. One of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. (From the article “New Obscurantism and Russian Enlightenment”)

A characteristic phenomenon of the time has become the modification of the historical novel: the past becomes a springboard for clarifying the social and political mechanisms of modernity.

A common principle of construction is multi-layering, the presence in a single artistic whole of layers of reality far removed from each other.

The German “intellectual novel” was philosophical, firstly, because there was a tradition of philosophizing in artistic creativity, and secondly, because it strived for systematicity. The cosmic concepts of German novelists did not pretend to be a scientific interpretation of the world order. According to the wishes of its creators, “the intellectual novel was to be perceived not as philosophy, but as art.

Laws of construction of the “Intellectual Novel”.

Wilhelm II spoke about the great changes to which he was leading Germany, but T. Mann saw its decline.

“If my previous works acquired a monumental character, then it turned out beyond expectation, without intention”

“My book is basically a book about the German soul.”

Here it is difficult to discern the transition of the tangible-real into the illusory perspective of the drawing. This editing technique is part of the very design of the book.”

“If you are writing a novel about an artist, there is nothing more vulgar than to praise the art, the genius, the work. What was needed here was reality, concreteness. I had to study music."

“I carried with me a volume of Schwanks from the 16th century - after all, my story always went back to this era, so in other places an appropriate flavor in the language was required.”

“The main motive of my novel is the proximity of infertility, the organic doom of the era, predisposing to a deal with the devil.”