A Master from Germany: Thomas Mann, Albrecht Dürer, and the Making of a National Icon
Author: Ruehl, Martin
Source: Oxford German Studies, Volume 38, Number 1, 2009 , pp. 61-106(46)
Publisher: Maney Publishing
Abstract:
Many critics have commented on Thomas Mann's allusions to Dürer's art in Doktor Faustus, but few have considered its larger symbolic significance for his self-understanding as a German Künstler and Bürger. One work was of particular importance in this regard: the copperplate engraving known as Ritter, Tod und Teufel (1513). In the Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (1918), Mann invokes the engraving as a sign of Nietzsche's – and his own – attachment to a Protestant, ascetic worldview and a specifically German, Faustian notion of masterliness. This interpretation of the image as well as Mann's subsequent repudiation of it were conditioned by the increasingly nationalist appropriation of Dürer since the late nineteenth century, but even more so by the novelist's war-time confidant and collaborator, the literary historian and Nietzsche scholar Ernst Bertram.Document Type: Research Article
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/007871909x429897
Publication date: 2009-03-01
- Editorial Board
- Information for Authors
- Subscribe to this Title
- Information for Advertisers
- Terms & Conditions
- Top articles
- L&LSpotlight
- Virtual L&L
- ingentaconnect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites
- In this: publication
- By this: publisher
- By this author: Ruehl, Martin

Shopping cart
Receive new issue alert
Get Permissions