Mann T

NAME:  Mann,  Paul Thomas

ACHIEVEMENTS:  Major German novelist

NICKNAME/ALIAS:  None

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:  June 6, 1875, Lubeck, Germany

DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH:  August 12, 1955, near Zurich,

Switzerland. Aged 80

DISCIPLINE:  Novelist

FIELD:  Literature

LANGUAGE:  German, English

PARENTS:  Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann;  Julia da Silva-Bruhns

SIBLINGS:  Heinrich;  Karl; Julia; Carla

SPOUSE:  Katja Pringsheim

CHILDREN:  Erika; Klaus; Golo; Monika;  Elisabeth; Michael

EDUCATION:  Kandidaten School, Lubeck, Germany; Katharineum, Lubeck,

Germany

MAJOR WORK:  "Buddenbrooks"; "Death in Venice"; "The Magic Mountain"

LIFE AND TIMES:

Mann was  impressed by the writings of philosopher <influenced by> Friedrich

Nietzsche*, and adopted his idea that victory over oneself is the most important aim.  He was also influenced by philosopher <influenced by> Arthur Schopenhauer*, who asserted that the irrational is the primary force in man.  And he was awestruck by the music of German composer <influenced by> Wagner*.  In 1895, at 20, he went to Rome to join his brother, Heinrich, also a writer. 

In 1896, a new satirical magazine in Munich, "Simplicissimus" accepted a story from Mann, who spent his fee on a return trip to Rome.  Both Mann brothers were selling short stories to German magazines, one of which, "Neue Deutsche  Rundschau", an arts magazine in Berlin, printed Mann's "Little Herr Friedmann". 

The magazine's publisher and owner, Samuel Fischer, suggested Mann write a longer work and Mann and Heinrich decided to write a novel together.  Heinrich had the idea of a family saga because he found certain episodes in their own family fascinating  (such as their uncle's rise in wealth and power through supplying Napoleon's armies). 

However, it was Mann who ultimately took on the project.  He decided to write a "novella of adolescence", and ended up writing the only significant German novel that belongs to the school of <influenced by> naturalism* -- "Buddenbrooks" -- which depicts the rise and fall of a mercantile family over four generations. .

To research "Buddenbrooks", Mann wrote to relatives in Germany for  details of grain prices, currency values, traditional Lubeck recipes, family scandals, and  social gossip.  Mann had read the naturalistic novels of <influenced by> Zola* and German translations of English writer <influenced by> Dickens* and Russian writers <influenced by> Tolstoy* and<influenced by> Turgenev*.

In 1898, Mann returned from Rome to Munich to take a job as reader and copywriter for "Simplicissimus".  In the same year, his collection of short stories was published.  In 1900, he finished "Buddenbrooks," published the next year.  It sold slowly at first, but a new edition at a lower price became an immediate success two years later.

Also in 1903, Mann abandoned his naturalistic style, which he considered "mechanical" and published two  novellas, "Tonio Kroger" and Tristan" in another style, which he considered "musical."  As a  consequence, he was now popular both with the public that liked "Buddenbrooks" and with the intellectuals who liked the novellas.  In 1905, Mann married a woman he had been pursuing for two years -- Katja, the daughter of <father-in-law was> Pringsheim*,  Professor of Mathematics at Munich University.

In 1911, after a holiday in Venice was cut short by a cholera outbreak, and during which he had been fascinated by a beautiful young Polish boy in his hotel, Mann wrote about this experience in a novel that gained great popularity, "Death in Venice,"  serialised in 1912, and appearing as a book in 1913.

In 1914, Mann began writing "The Magic Mountain", not published until 1924.   After the publication of "The Magic Mountain",  Mann wrote the novellas "Early Sorrow" and "Mario and the Magician".  As the  political situation darkened in Europe, Mann's essays stressed the importance of tolerance, warned that the humane impulse in man was in danger of being stripped away, and pointed up the need for reason to balance popular

enthusiasm. 

In 1929, Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In 1930, Mann spoke out against Nazism, giving a  lecture in Berlin titled "An Appeal to Reason".  He called for the formation of a united front by the middle-class intelligentsia and the Socialist workers against what he labeled the inhuman intolerance and fanaticism of the Nazis.  

Mann continued to speak out courageously in his essays and on lecture tours in Germany and throughout Europe. In 1933, while Mann and his wife were in Switzerland, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.  Mann was warned by his family not to return, and settled in Zurich, from where he travelled widely in Europe and the United States,  giving lectures.

In 1936, Mann's German citizenship was revoked, and in the same year, the University of Bonn revoked his honorary doctorate.  In 1938, the Mann’s went to the United States.  Mann first took a post at Princeton University, then moved to Southern California in 1941.  Two years earlier, he expressed his continued admiration of Goethe in "Lotte in Weimar" ("The Beloved Returns"), which told of a hypothetical meeting between an aged Goethe and a lost love from his youth.

 In 1943, Mann began his most political novel, "Doctor Faustus", an allegorical story of a composer and his music, depicting  Germany's tragic history in the 20th century.

After the Second World War, Mann visited both East and West Germany, but remained based in the United States until 1952, when  he settled near Zurich.  He died there three years later.

ASSESSMENT:  One of the best German novelists of the 20th century

EXTRA CONNECTIONS: His son-in-law was <son-in-law was> WH Auden*

ONELINER: Thomas Mann, major German novelist and Nobel winner

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

Hamilton, Nigel,  The Brothers Mann, Martin Secker & Warburg, 1978

Sandbox: TheBrain