
Bluebeard's Chamber
Guilt and Confession in Thomas Mann
Michael Maar(Author)
Verso Books (Publisher)
Published on 17. October 2003
Book
Hardback
152 pages
978-1-85984-529-5 (ISBN)
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Description
Over the last twenty years, much critical discussion of Thomas Mann has highlighted his homosexuality. This not only is presented as a dynamic underlying Mann's creative work, but also is the supposed reason for the theme of guilt and redemption that grew ever stronger in Mann's fiction, and for his panic in 1933 that his early diaries would fall into the hands of the Nazis.
Michael Maar mounts a devastating forensic challenge to this consensus: Mann was remarkably open about his sexual orientation, which he saw as no reason for guilt. But sexuality in Mann's work is inextricably bound up with an eruption of violence. Maar pursues this trail through Mann's writings and traces its origins back to Mann's second visit to Italy, during which the Devil appeared to him in Palestrina. Something happened to the twenty-one-year-old Thomas Mann in Naples that marked him for life with a burdensome sense of guilt...but what exactly was it?
Michael Maar mounts a devastating forensic challenge to this consensus: Mann was remarkably open about his sexual orientation, which he saw as no reason for guilt. But sexuality in Mann's work is inextricably bound up with an eruption of violence. Maar pursues this trail through Mann's writings and traces its origins back to Mann's second visit to Italy, during which the Devil appeared to him in Palestrina. Something happened to the twenty-one-year-old Thomas Mann in Naples that marked him for life with a burdensome sense of guilt...but what exactly was it?
Reviews / Votes
Germany's most gifted literary critic of the younger generation. * London Review of Books *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
299 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-85984-529-5 (9781859845295)
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Book
02/2019
Verso Books
€17.50
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Persons
Michael Maar is one of Germany's leading literary critics. Formerly a visiting professor at Stanford University, he is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the German Academy for Language and Literature.