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Thomas Mann’s Die Betrogene

1963; Routledge; Volume: 38; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19306962.1963.11787124

1930-6962

George C. Schoolfield,

German History and Society

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size NotesGilbert Highet, “Life and Health, Disease and Death,” Harper’s, CCIX (July 1954), 93; John F. Sullivan, “Late Mann,” Commonweal, LX (June 25, 1954), 302; Joseph Frank, “Mann—Death and Transfiguration,” New Republic, CXXXI (July 5, 1954), 18–19; Brendan Gill, “Lean Years,” New Yorker, XXX (July 10, 1954), 70–71.Johannes Pfeiffer, “über Thomas Manns Erzählung ’Die Betrogene’,” Wirkendes Wort, VIII (1957–58), 30–33; C. W. F. Behl, “Das gefährliche Alter,” Deutsche Rundschau, LXXX (January 1954), 86–88; Inge Diersen, Untersuchungen zu Thomas Mann (Berlin, 1959), p. 306.Bengt Holmqvist, “ Döden i Düsseldorf,” Bonniers litterära magasin, XXIII (March, 1954), 206–209.Max Schroeder, “Die Betrogene, “ Aufbau, X (1954), 381–382.Joseph Mileck, “A Comparative Study of ’Die Betrogene’ and ’Der Tod in Venedig’,” Modern Language Forum, XLII (1957), 124–129; Hans M. Wolff, Thomas Mann: Werk und Gedächtnis (Bern, 1957), pp. 130–134; William H. Rey, “Rechtfertigung der Liebe in Thomas Manns Erzählung, ’Die Betrogene’,” DVLG, XXXIV (1960), 428–448. Fritz Kaufmann, in Thomas Mann, The World as Will and Representation (Boston, 1957), holds essentially the same opinion as Rey on the position of Die Betrogene in Mann’s work (p. 226); however, he mentions the story only briefly.R. Hinton Thomas, Thomas Mann: The Mediation of Art (Oxford, 1956), p. 175.Thomas Mann, Nachlese: Prosa 1951–55 (Berlin and Frankfurt a. M., 1956), pp. 192–193.Thomas Mann-Karl Kerényi, Gespräch in Briefen (Zürich, 1960), pp. 90–91.Thomas Mann, Deutsche Hörer (Stockholm, 1942), p. 96.Thomas Mann, “Deutschland und die Deutschen,” Gesammelte Werke (Berlin, 1960), XI, 1127.Thomas Mann, Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus (Amsterdam, 1949), p. 102.Is the remark of Ken Keaton, the American leading man in Die Betrogene, a jibe at Harry Truman by means of a reference to Truman’s role in Kansas City politics? “Man solle nur einmal versuchen, eine amerikanische Stadt ’heilig’ zu nennen—Holy Kansas City, hahaha” (Die Betrogene, Frankfurt a. M., 1953, p. 41). Mann may have indulged in oblique sniping at an American political figure on an earlier novelistic occasion, too: Wendell Kretzschmar, the German-American musician in Doktor Faustus, suffers from violent fits of stuttering, which make his lectures difficult to follow; Wendell Willkie, likewise of German-American ancestry, had his presidential campaign against Roosevelt impaired, it will be remembered, by a semi-paralysis of the muscles of his throat.Cf. Erika Mann, Das letzte Jahr (Frankfurt a. M., 1956), pp. 52–53. Monika Mann, another of the children, appears to blame California’s landscape and climate for what she disapproves of in her father’s late works: “Bloß zwischen den Zeilen sei gesagt, daß ich glaube, die entrückte Eleganz jener fernen Küste, ihre beinah abstrakte Schönheit und mondäne öde, die meinen Vater zwölf Jahre lang umgaben, haben großen Einfluß auf ihn und sein Werk ausgeübt, haben ihn aus eigenen Traditionen ins Stilistisch-Waghalsige geführt” (Vergangenes und Gegenwärtiges [Munich, 1956), pp. 130–131).Thomas Mann, Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (Frankfurt a. M., 1954), p. 271.Thomas Mann, Doktor Faustus (Stockholm, 1947), p. 453.Theodor W. Adorno, “Aus einem Brief über Die Betrogene an Thomas Mann,” Akzente, II (June 1955), 286.Karl Immermann, Memorabilien: Düsseldorfer Anfänge in Werke (Berlin, 1883), XX, 126. Goethe said the same thing to Wilhelm von Humboldt in a letter of March 1, 1829 (Werke, Weimar, 1887–1920, Abt. IV, XLV, 184): “Am Rhein und in den nieder·ländischen Gegenden bleibt eine gewisse heitere Sinnlichkeit durchaus lebendig …”Thomas Mann, Neue Studien (Stockholm, 1948), p. 45.Goethe, Werke, Abt. I, XXXI, 101.Thomas Mann-Karl Kerényi, Gespräch in Briefen, p. 27 and p. 128.Mann was particularly struck by Kerényi’s theory of the identity of Demeter and Kore because of an odd coincidence. He first read of it (in Kerényi’s Das ägäische Fest) when he had just completed the anecdote of Mai-Sachme in Joseph in Aegypten, which is built upon a similar theme (see Gespräch in Briefen, p. 94). After having studied Das göttliche Mädchen, Mann used the “göttliche Untat und Räuberei” for the tale of Joseph’s marriage (Gespräch in Briefen, p. 99). The theme of mother-daughter identity reappears, following Die Betrogene, in Krull, where Felix is captivated both by Frau Kuckuck-da Cruz and her daughter, Zouzou: “so galt meine Neugier und zarte Anteilnahme der Mutter, der Tochter” (p. 330).George C. Schoolfield, “Notes on Broch’s ’Der Versucher,’” Monatshefte, XLVIII (January, 1956), 1–16.Broch gave his most lucid apology for his aversion to his métier in a letter of April 10, 1943, to Friedrich Torberg (Briefe [Zürich, 1957], pp. 184–189).Rainer Maria Rilke, in Briefe an R. R. Junghanns und Rudolf Zimmermann (Olten, 1945), p. 30, describes a remarkably similar event: “die Erscheinungsgruppen des Lebens sind für unsere Aufnehmung noch entsetzlich unverbunden und unvereinlich,—gehen Sie durch den Wald an einem Frühlingstag,—es genügt ein kleines Abgleiten des Blicks in eine andere Daseinskategorie der Natur, schon sind wir statt beim Leben bei der Zerstörung und Auflösung … “ But Rilke concludes: “Aber was will das gegen den Frühling sagen? Was wider den Wald? Was wider uns?”Thomas Mann, Briefe 1889–1936 (Frankfurt a. M., 1961), pp. 80–81.Vergil treats the theme of impregnation by the wind in the Georgics (III, 274–281), and, like Mann, gives the tale a rather sinister undertone: Vergil’s horses receive “leves auras, et saepe sine ullis / Conjugiis vento gravidae, mirabile dictu, / Saxa per et scopulos et depressas convalles / Diffugiunt, non, Eure, tuos, neque solis ad ortus, / In Borean Caurumque, aut unde nigerrimus Auster / Nascitur et pluvio contristat frigore caelum. / Hic demum, hippomanes vero quod nomine dicunt / Pastores, lentum destillat ab inguine virus.”The sequoia and the swamp cypress, despite their great difference in appearance, belong to the same family, the taxodiaceae, just as Ken and Rosalie, despite their many dissimilarities, belong to the tribe of “heitere Romantiker.”The carefully detailed description of Holterhof which Mann puts in the guide’s mouth (pp. 114–115) makes the true identity of the place sufficiently plain.See Rafael v. Uslar, “Zum Holterhöfchen bei Hilden” in Hildener Jahrbuch 1956–59 (Hilden, 1960), pp. 9–31 for a description of the fortifications. It is also perhaps worth noting that Hilden is the birthplace of Fabricius Hildanus (Wilhelm Fabry, 1560–1634), the father of modern surgery. Can the association of Fabry with Hilden have been still another reason for Mann’s rechristening of Benrath as Holterhof, the place where Rosalie receives her final preparation for the skillful but unsuccessful knife of Dr. Muthesius?See C. G. Jung and Karl Kerényi, Essays on a Science of Mythology (New York, 1949), pp. 169–170. Zeus, it should be remembered, is “corresponding and equal” to Hades in the stories of the “rape” of Demeter-Kore; he functions as Zeus Chthonios, the subterranean god. See Karl Kerényi, The Gods of the Greeks (London, 1951), pp. 230–232.The black swan, chenopis atrata, is literally a rare bird in Europe, since it is native to Australia.In fairness, it must be admitted that black swans mean happiness in at least one piece of nineteenth-century music. Having got rid of Minna in Paris, Wagner was invited to stay at the Prussian embassy; there, watching the black swans on the embassy’s pond, he wrote the “Albumblatt,” Ankunft bei den schwarzen Schwänen.Gertrude Atherton, Adventures of a Novelist (New York, 1932), p. 560.Mrs. Atherton and Mann had met in Munich before the First World War; the American woman was put off by Mann’s air of superiority (Adventures of a Novelist, p. 419).Gertrude Atherton, Black Oxen (New York, 1923), p. 321.Yet perhaps she does not possess awareness enough: Rosalie is a representative of that “schönsten deutschen Eigenschaft, der deutschen Innerlichkeit,” as Mann calls the quality in “Deutschland und die Deutschen” (Gesammelte Werke, XI, 1142); the same quality, Mann observes in his essay, has often brought Germany to evil days.Henry Hatfield, “Death in the Late Works of Thomas Mann,” GR, XXXIV (1959), 286.Thomas Mann, Neue Studien, p. 45.