"principally for his great novel, Buddenbrooks, which has won steadily increased recognition as one of the classic works of contemporary literature"
Born
:
June 6, 1875
Place of birth
:
Lübeck, Germany
Died
:
12 August 1955
Place of death
:
Zürich, Switzerland
Occupation
:
Novelist, Short story writer, Essayist
Nationality
:
Germany
Notable award(s)
:
Nobel Prize in Literature 1929
Biography:
Son of a wealthy family of merchants, was born in Luebeck, Germany, in 1875. After studying at an institute of the city, marched with his family to Munich, where university, preparing to become a journalist, he studied history, economics, art history and literature. He began his career as a writer writing for Simplicissimus. The first story of Mann, "Mr Little Friedemann" (Der Kleine Herr Friedemann) was published in 1898. He lived in Munich since 1891 until 1933, with the exception of one year he spent in Palestrina, Italy, with his older brother, also a novelist Heinrich; there began writing his first great work, the novel The Buddenbrook, describing the decline of a bourgeois family. At this early stage of his work focused on the troubled relationship between art and life, which touched on Tonio Kröger, Tristan and Death in Venice, and then culminating with Doctor Faustus. In Death in Venice describes the behavior of a writer in a Venice ravaged by cholera, said work is the culmination of the ideas aesthetics of the author, who developed a peculiar psychology of the artist.
In 1905, he married Katia Pringsheim, daughter of a prominent family of intellectuals of Jewish origin. The Mann had six children: Erika, Klaus, Golo, Monika, Elisabeth and Michael, all of which would come to become artistic figures in their own right.
When the First World War, Mann defended the German nationalism; at the end of the contest, however, their ideology evolved and became a fervent defender of democratic values. Testimony of this evolution is the novel The Magic Mountain, which takes place in a sanitarium for tuberculosis patients and is a novel transposition of the political and philosophical debates of the era. In 1929 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Works:
Works in German (large selection):
Der kleine Herr Friedemann : Novellen – Berlin : Fischer, 1898
Buddenbrooks : Verfall einer Familie : Roman – 2 vol. – Berlin : Fischer, 1901
Tristan : Sechs Novellen – Berlin : Fischer, 1903
Fiorenza – Berlin : Fischer, 1906
Bilse und ich – München : Bonsels, 1906
Königliche Hoheil – Berlin : Fischer, 1909
Der kleine Herr Friedemann und andere Novellen – Berlin : Fischer, 1909
Der Tod in Venedig : Novelle – München : Hyperion, 1912
Das Wunderkind : Novellen – Berlin : Fischer, 1914
Friedrich und die große Koalition – Berlin : Fischer, 1915
Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen – Berlin : Fischer, 1918
Herr und Hund ; Gesang vom Kindchen : Zwei Idyllen – Berlin : Fischer, 1919
Wälsungenblut – München : Phantasus, 1921
Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull : Buch der Kmdheit – Wien : Rikola, 1922 – Enlarged as Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull : Der Memoiren erster Teil (Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1954)
Rede und Antwort : Gesammelte Abhandlungen und kleine Aufsätze – Berlin : Fischer, 1922
Von deutscher Republik – Berlin : Fischer, 1923
Okkulte Erlebnisse – Berlin : Häger, 1924
Der Zauberberg : Roman – 2 vol. – Berlin : Fischer, 1924
Lübeck als geistige Lebensform – Lübeck : Quitzow, 1926
Kino : Romanfragment – Gera : Blau, 1926
Pariser Rechenschaft – Berlin : Fischer, 1926
Unordnung und frühes Leid – Berlin : Fischer, 1926
Zwei Festreden – Leipzig : Reclam, 1928
Hundert Jahre Reclam : Festrede – Leipzig : Reclam, 1928
Sieben Aufsätze – Berlin : Fischer, 1929
Mario und der Zauberer : Ein tragisches Reiseerlebnis – Berlin : Fischer, 1930
Lebensabriß – Paris : Harrison, 1930
Die Forderung des Tages: Reden und Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1925-1929 – Berlin : Fischer, 1930
Deutsche Ansprache : Ein Appell an die Vernunft – Berlin : Fischer, 1930
Goethe als Repräsentant des bürgerlichen Zeitalters : Rede – Wien : Bermann-Fischer, 1932
Goethes Laufbahn als Schriftsteller : Vortrag – München : Oldenbourg, 1933
Die Geschichten Jaakobs – Berlin : Fischer, 1933
Der junge Joseph – Berlin : Fischer, 1934
Leiden und Größe der Meister – Berlin : Fischer, 1935
Freud und die Zukunft : Vortrag – Wien : Bermann-Fischer, 1936
Joseph in Ägypten – Wien : Bermann-Fischer, 1936
Ein Briefwechsel – Zürich : Oprecht, 1937
Freud, Goethe, Wagner : Three Essays / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1937
Stockholmer Gesamtausgabe der Werke – 12 vol. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1938-1956
Dieser Friede – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1938
Schopenhauer – Stockholm Bermann-Fischer, 1938
Vom künftigen Sieg der Demokratie – Zürich : Oprecht, 1938
Achtung, Europa! : Aufsätze zur Zeit – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1938
Lotte in Weimar – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1939
Die vertauschten Köpfe : Eine indische Legende – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1940
Dieser Krieg : Aufsatz – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1940
Deutsche Hörer! : 25 Radiosendungen nach Deutschland – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1942
Joseph, der Ernährer – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1943
Deutsche Hörer! : 55 Radiosendungen nach Deutschland. – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1945
Das Gesetz : Erzählung – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1944
Adel des Geistes : Sechzehn Versuche zum Problem der Humanität. – Stockholm: Bermann-Fischer, 1945
Leiden an Deutschland : Tagebuchblätter aus den Jahren 1933 und 1934. – Los Angeles : Pazifische Presse/New York: Rosenberg, 1946
Deutschland und die Deutschen : Vortrag – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1947
Doktor Faustus : Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn, erzählt von einem Freunde – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1947
Nietzsches Philosophie im Lichte unserer Erfahrung : Vortrag – Berlin : Suhrkamp, 1948
Neue Studien – Stockholm : Bermann-Fischer, 1948
Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus : Roman eines Romans – Amsterdam : Bermann-Fischer, 1949
Goethe und die Demokratie – Zürich : Oprecht, 1949
Meine Zeit : 1875-1950 – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1950
Der Erwählte : Roman – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1951
Lob der Vergänglichkeit – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1952
Die Betrogene : Erzählung – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1953
Der Künstler und die Gesellschaft : Vortrag – Wien : Frick, 1953
Altes und Neues : Kleine Prosa aus fünf Jahrzehnten – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1953
Adel des Geistes : Zwanzig Versuche zum Problem der Humanität – Berlin : Aufbau, 1955
Ansprache im Schillerjahr 1955 – Berlin : Aufbau, 1955
Das Eisenbahnunglück : Novellen – München : Piper, 1955
Versuch über Schiller : Seinem Andenken zum 150. Todestag in Liebe gewidmet – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1955
Nachlese : Prosa 1951-1955 – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1956
Meerfahrt mit Don Quijote – Wiesbaden : Insel, 1956
Sorge um Deutschland : Sechs Essays – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1957
Wagner und unsere Zeit : Aufsätze, Betrachtungen, Briefe / Hrsg. von Erika Mann – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1963
Notizen : Zu Felix Krull, Königliche Hoheit, Versuch über das Theater, Maja, Geist und Kultur, Ein Elender, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, Doktor Faustus und anderen Werken / Hrsg. von Hans Wysling – Heidelberg : Winter, 1973
Thomas Mann : Tagebücher – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1977 –
Notizbücher : Edition in zwei Bänden / Hrsg. von Hans Wysling und Yvonne Schmidlin – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1991-1992
Essays – 6 vol. / Nach den Erstdr., textkritisch durchges., kommentiert und hrsg. von Hermann Kurzke und Stephan Stachorski – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1993-1997
Translations into English (large selection):
Royal Highness : a Novel of German Court Life / translated by A. Cecil Curtis – New York : Knopf, 1916
Bashan and I / translated by Herman George Scheffauer – London : Collins, 1923. – Republ. as A Man and His Dog 1930
Buddenbrooks / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – 2 vol. – New York : Knopf, 1924
Death in Venice – New York : Knopf, 1925
The Magic Mountain – 2 vol. – translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1927
Children and Fools / translated by Herman George Scheffauer – New York : Knopf, 1928
Early Sorrow / translated by Herman George Scheffauer – London Secker, 1929
Mario and the Magician / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – London : Secker, 1930
Past Masters and Other Papers / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1933
Joseph and His Brothers / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1934
Young Joseph / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1935
Stories of Three Decades / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1936
An Exchange of Letters / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1937
The Coming Victory of Democracy / translated by Agnes E. Meyer – London : Secker & Warburg, 1938
Joseph in Egypt / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1938
This Peace / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1938
The Beloved Returns / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1940 – Republ. as Lotte in Weimar 1940
This War / translated by Eric Sutton – New York : Knopf, 1940
Transposed Heads : A Legend of India – translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1941
Order of the Day : Political Essays and Speeches of Two Decades / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter, Agnes E. Meyer and Eric Sutton – New York : Knopf, 1942
Listen, Germany ! : Twenty-five Radio Messages to the German People over B.B.C. / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter. – New York : Knopf, 1943
Joseph the Provider / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1944
The Tables of the Law / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1945
Essays of Three Decades / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1947
Doctor Faustus : the Life of the German Composer, Adrian Leverkühn, as Told by a Friend / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1948
The Holy Sinner / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1951
The Black Swan / translated by Willard R. Trask – New York : Knopf, 1954
Confessions of Feliz Krull, Confidence Man : The Early Years / translated by Denver Lindley – New York : Knopf, 1955
Last Essays / translated by Richard and Clara Winston, Tania and James Stern, and H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1959
A Sketch of My Life / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – New York : Knopf, 1960
Stories of a Lifetime. – 2 vol. / translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter – London : Secker & Warburg, 1961
The Story of a Novel : the Genesis of Doctor Faustus / translated by Richard and Clara Winston – New York : Knopf, 1961
Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man / translated by Walter D. Morris – New York : Ungar, 1983
Pro and Contra Wagner / translated by Allan Blunden – Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1985
Death in Venice and Other Stories / translated by David Luke – New York : Bantam, 1988
Buddenbrooks : the Decline of a Family / translated by John E. Woods – New York : Knopf, 1993
Doctor Faustus / translated by John E. Woods – New York : Knopf, 1997
Death in Venice and Other Tales / translated by Joachim Neugroschel – New York : Viking, 1998
Death in Venice : complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives / edited by Naomi Ritter – Boston : Bedford Books, 1998
Death in Venice, Tonio Kroger, and Other Writings / edited by Frederick A. Lubich, foreword by Harold Bloom – New York : Continuum, 1999
Death in Venice / translated by Michael Heim. – New York : Ecco, 2004
Joseph and His Brothers : the Stories of Jacob, Young Joseph, Joseph in Egypt, Joseph the Provider / translated from the German by John E. Woods – New York : Everyman’s Library, 2005
The Magic Mountain / translated from the German by John E. Woods – New York : Knopf, 2005
Literature (a selection):
Mendelssohn, Peter de, Der Zauberer : Das Leben des deutschen Schriftstellers Thomas Mann – Erster Teil: 1875-1918 – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 1975
Thomet, Ulrich, Das Problem der Bildung im Werk Thomas Manns – Bern : Lang, 1975
Luft, Hermann, Der Konflikt zwischen Geist und Sinnlichkeit in Thomas Manns Tod in Venedig – Bern : Lang, 1976
Rieckmann, Jens, Der Zauberberg : eine geistige Autobiographie Thomas Manns – Stuttgart : Heinz, 1977
Jendreiek, Helmut, Thomas Mann : Der demokratische Roman – Düsseldorf : Bagel, 1977
Sandt, Lotti, Mythos und Symbolik im Zauberberg von Thomas Mann – Bern : Haupt, 1979
Koopmann, Helmut, Der schwierige Deutsche : Studien zum Werk Thomas Manns – Tübingen : Niemeyer, 1988
Bruhn, Gert, Das Selbstzitat bei Thomas Mann : Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von Fiktion und Autobiographie in seinem Werk – New York : Peter Lang, 1992
Sprecher, Thomas, Thomas Mann in Zürich – München : Fink, 1992
Fetzer, John F., Changing Perceptions of Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus : Criticism 1947-1992 – Columbia, SC : Camden, 1996
Heilbut, Anthony, Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature – Berkeley : Univ. of California Press, 1997
Scaff, Susan von Rohr, History, Myth, and Music : Thomas Mann's Timely Fiction – Columbia, SC : Camden House, 1998
Wolters, Dierk, Zwischen Metaphysik und Politik : Thomas Manns Roman 'Joseph und seine Brüder' in seiner Zeit – Tübingen : Niemeyer, 1998
Thomas-Mann-Handbuch / herausgegeben von Helmut Koopmann. – Stuttgart : Kröner, 1990
Kurzke, Hermann, Thomas Mann : das Leben als Kunstwerk – München : Beck, 1999
Elsaghe, Yahya, Die imaginäre Nation : Thomas Mann und das 'Deutsche' – München : Fink, 2000
Höbusch, Harald, Thomas Mann : Kunst, Kritik, Politik 1893-1913 – Tübingen : Francke, 2000
Maar, Michael, Das Blaubartzimmer : Thomas Mann und die Schuld – Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp, 2000
Breloer, Heinrich, & Königstein, Horst, Die Manns : ein Jahrhundertroman – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 2001
Kinkel, Elke, Thomas Mann in Amerika : Interkultureller Dialog im Wandel? : Eine rezeptions- und übersetzungskritische Analyse am Beispiel des Doktor Faustus – Frankfurt am Main : Peter Lang, 2001
Kurzke, Hermann, Thomas Mann : Life as a Work of Art : a Biography / translated by Leslie Wilson – London : Allen Lane, 2002
Hoffschulte, Martina, "Deutsche Hörer!" : Thomas Manns Rundfunkreden (1940 bis 1945) im Werkkontext. – Münster : Telos-Verl., 2003
Shookman, Ellis, Thomas Mann's Death in Venice : a Novella and Its Critics – Rochester, NY : Camden House, 2003
Shookman, Ellis, Thomas Mann's Death in Venice : a Reference Guide – Westport, CT : Greenwood, 2004
Mundt, Hannelore, Understanding Thomas Mann – Columbia, SC : Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2004
Görtemaker, Manfred, Thomas Mann und die Politik – Frankfurt am Main : Fischer, 2005
Awards:
1929: Nobel Prize in Literature.
Presentation Speech:
Presentation Speech by Fredrik Böök, Member of the Nobel Committee for Literature, on December 10, 1929
If one asks which innovation the nineteenth century made in the field of literature, which new form it created in addition to the old forms of epic, drama, and lyric, whose roofs are in Greece, the answer must be: the realistic novel. By setting forth the innermost, secret experiences of the human soul against the background of contemporary social conditions, and by stressing the interdependence of the general and the particular, it has been able to portray reality with a faithful accuracy and a completeness that have no parallels in older literature.
The realistic novel - one could call it a modern prose epic influenced by historicism and science - has by and large been the creation of the English, the French, and the Russians; it is associated with the names of Dickens and Thackeray, Balzac and Flaubert, Gogol and Tolstoy. There was no comparable contribution from Germany for a long time; poetic creativity there chose other outlets. The nineteenth century had come to its end when a young writer, the twenty-seven-year-old son of a merchant from the old Hanse city of Lübeck, published his novel Buddenbrooks (1901). Twenty-seven years have passed since then, and it has become clear to all that Buddenbrooks is the masterpiece that fills the gap. Here is the first and as yet unsurpassed German realistic novel in the grand style which takes its undisputed and equal place in the European concert.
Buddenbrooks is a bourgeois novel, for the century it portrays was above all a bourgeois era. It depicts a society neither so great as to bewilder the observer, nor so small and narrow as to stifle him. This middle level favours an intelligent, thoughtful, and subtle analysis, and the creative power itself, the pleasure of epic narration, is shaped by calm, mature, and sophisticated reflection. We see a bourgeois civilization in all its nuances, we see the historical horizons, the changes of time, the changes of generations, the gradual transition from self-contained, powerful, and un-self-conscious characters to reflective types of a refined and weak sensibility. The presentation is lucid yet penetrates beneath the surface to hidden processes of life; it is powerful but never brutal, and touches lightly on delicate things; it is sad and serious but never depressing because it is permeated by a quiet, deep sense of humour that is iridescently reflected in the prism of ironic intelligence.
As a portrayal of a society, a concrete and objective representation of reality, Buddenbrooks hardly has its equal in German literature. Beyond the limits of its genre, however, the novel betrays its common features with the German mind, with metaphysical and musical transcendentalism. The young writer who had mastered the techniques of literary realism so perfectly was at heart a convert to Schopenhauer's pessimism and Nietzsche's criticism of civilization, and the main characters of the novel reveal their ultimate secrets in music.
Basically Buddenbrooks is a philosophical novel. The decline of a family is portrayed from the point of view that a profound insight into the essence and conditions of life is irreconcilable with naive joie de vivre and active energy. Reflection, self-observation, psychological refinement, philosophical profundity, and aesthetic sensibility appear to the young Thomas Mann destructive and disintegrating forces; in one of his most exquisite stories, Tonio Kröger (1903), he has found moving words for his love of human life in all its simplicity. Because he stood outside the bourgeois world that he portrayed, his vision was free, but he had a nostalgic feeling for the loss of naiveté, a feeling which gives him understanding, sympathy, and respect.
The painful experience of Mann's youth that gave its profound tone to Buddenbrooks includes a problem that he has treated and tried to solve in different ways throughout his career as a writer. Within himself he has felt the tension between the aesthetic-philosophical and the pragmatic-bourgeois outlooks, and he has tried to resolve it in harmony on a higher level. In the short stories Tonio Kröger and Tristan (1903) the exiles from life, the devotees of art, knowledge, and death, confess their desire for a simple and healthy existence, for life in its seductive banality. It is Mann's own paradoxical love for simple and happy natures that speaks through them.
In the novel Königliche Hoheit (1909) [Royal Highness], whose realistic form disguises a symbolic story, he reconciled the life of the artist with that of the man of action, and he gave a motto to that human ideal: highness and love - an austere happiness. But the synthesis is neither as convincing nor as deeply felt as the antithesis in Buddenbrooks and the short stories. In the drama Fiorenza (1906), in which the moralist Savonarola and the aestheticist Lorenzo di Medici appear as irreconcilable enemies, the gap is opened anew. In Der Tod in Venedig (1913) [Death in Venice] it reaches tragic significance. It was during this period, in the years that preceded the World War, that he became interested in the personality of Frederick the Great. He felt that that ruler presented a historically valid solution of the problem, for Frederick's genius had, with unbroken vitality, combined action, contemplation, and a penetrating clarity free from illusions. In the ingenious essay Friedrich und die grosse Koalition (1915) [Frederick the Great and the Grand Coalition] he showed the possibility and reality of the solution, but the problematic writer of Buddenbrooks did not succeed in representing this ideal in the plastic and vital form of literature.
The World War and its consequences forced Mann to leave the world of contemplation, of ingenious analysis and subtle visions of beauty, for the world of practical action. He followed his own advice, implied in his novel Königliche Hoheit, to beware of the easy and the comfortable, and dedicated himself to an agonizing reappraisal of the questions that his country faced in its time of affliction. His later works, especially the novel Der Zauberberg (1924) [The Magic Mountain], testify to the struggle of the ideas which his dialectical nature fought to the end and which preceded the statement of his opinions.
Dr. Thomas Mann - As a German writer and thinker you have, reflecting realities, wrestled with ideas and created painful beauty even though you were convinced that art is questionable. You have reconciled the loftiness of poetry and the intellect with a yearning love for the human and, for the simple life. Accept from the hands of our King the Prize that the Swedish Academy with its congratulations has awarded to you.
