Musikpolitische Konstellationen in Thomas Manns Doktor Faustus

Abstract

A peculiarity of historical novels is the tension between literary fiction and historical narrative that itself is a generator for meaning. By virtue of his “montage technique,” Thomas Mann interweaves text, discourse, and protagonists from his historical and biographical environment and reworks them into components of an aesthetic whole. Additionally, configurations emerge in this literary fabric that allude to further connections that are not explicitly stated. They are of a fictitious nature that nevertheless permeate the historical and biographical background to which they are ambivalently related. This applies, among others, to Arnold Schoenberg and his twelve-tone technique as well as Theodor W. Adorno and his music aesthetics.