The Magic Mountain From 1949 to 2004, UNC Press and the UNC Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages and Literatures published the UNC Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures series. Monographs, anthologies, and critical editions in the series covered an array of topics including medieval and modern literature, theater, linguistics, philology, onomastics, and the history of ideas. Through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, books in the series have been reissued in new paperback and open access digital editions. For a complete list of books visit www.uncpress.org. The Magic Mountain A Study of Thomas Mann’s Novel Der Zauberberg hermann j. weigand UNC Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures Number 49 Copyright © 1965 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons cc by-nc-nd license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons. org/licenses. Suggested citation: Weigand, Hermann J. The Magic Mountain: A Study of Thomas Mann’s Novel Der Zauberberg. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965. doi: https://doi.org/ 10.5149/9781469658612_Weigand Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Weigand, Hermann J. Title: The magic mountain : A study of Thomas Mann’s Novel Der Zauberberg / by Hermann J. Weigand. Other titles: University of North Carolina Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures ; no. 49. Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [1965] Series: University of North Carolina Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures. Identifiers: lccn 64065030 | isbn 978-1-4696-5860-5 (pbk: alk. paper) | isbn 978-1-4696-5861-2 (ebook) Subjects: Mann, Thomas, 1875-1955. | Zauberberg. Classification: lcc pd25 .n6 no. 49 TO EWALD A. BOUCKE PREFACE In an age when novels are turned out and hastily read by the hundred year after year, it may seem a futile undertaking to devote a whole volume to the study of one of them. It would certainly be pedantic to do so, if Thomas Mann's "Zauberberg" were just an ordinary novel; but critics of all shades-and violently hostile voices are by no means lacking in the chorus of comment-are agreed that the "Zauberberg" is one of the most significant literary landmarks of our age. Superlatives, like prayer, had perhaps better be reserved for the privacy of one's chamber; but I do not think it exceeds the bounds of due restraint to say that for many readers the "Zau­ berberg" (and the personality that stands behind it) has pointed the way to a new faith in life, to a quickened consciousness of things really mattering, and to a more exacting attitude towards one's own sphere of activity, however humble or restricted. This study lays no claim to finality or exhaustiveness. In many respects it is a groping attempt to deal with a very complex theme capable, doubtless, of much better co-ordination. If I were to choose a motto for this book, it would be Hans Castorp's apology: "I would rather make a stab at things in the hope of expressing something dif­ ficult half-way than always be spouting excellent platitudes." I do not believe I need to apologize for taking the reader's familiarity with the immediate content of the "Zauberberg" for granted. Many topics, however, have only been casually touched upon that might well have deserved fuller treatment-it would have been tempting, for instance, to devote a whole chapter to the "Zauberberg" as a work of symbolical autobiography. All quotations from the German in the body of this book are of­ fered in the original, with an English version alongside for the con­ venience of the reader. (Published translations have been consulted where readily available. In most such cases I have adopted their text verbatim, reserving, however, the liberty to make any changes that seemed warranted in the interest of greater fidelity to the original.) There is something awkward about this procedure, but any other course would have involved paying too great a price for smoothness. A more word-conscious stylist than Thomas Mann probably never lived; and the tissue of themes in the "Magic !X X PREFACE Mountain" is to a unique degree a tissue of "magic words with in­ definitely ramified associations". No translation can hope to keep intact this tissue of magic words. In any two languages a given number of key words, corresponding in a fairly exact way as to their primary meanings, will tend to diverge more and more in expanding the range of their associated content. That is one of several reasons why any really adequate translation of the "Zauberberg" is an im­ possibility. Anyone who has read it only in English cannot help missing in large measure this functioning of its language after the manner of the musical "Leitmotiv", by which device echoes of the themes already developed constantly fall upon the ear and tend to keep the growing totality of the content ever present in conscious­ ness or just below its threshold. It is necessary to recognize this situation frankly, although this reflects no discredit upon Mrs. Lowe­ Porter's painstaking and often felicitous rendering. The notes at the back of this volume are of two kinds. There are page references to passages alluded to or quoted in the text. As dis­ tinguished from these checks, such notes as contribute additional explanatory data or more detailed discussion are designated by numbers enclosed in circles. To Miss Helen MacMee, Managing Editor of the " Yale Review ", and to my colleague, Professor Karl Young, both of whom read my manuscript, I am deeply indebted for many thoughtful suggestions. I also gratefully acknowledge the generous contribution toward the costs of publication on the part of the local Committee administering the funds of the General Education Board for the promotion of the humanities. This study is dated, of course, by the fact that it was written without the benefit of hindsight afforded by the second half of Thomas Mann's literary career. Even so, it is still regarded by students as the most searching interpretation of one of the world's literary master­ pieces. Thomas Mann himself gave it the stamp of his approval in the Princeton essay included in both the German and the American editions of The Magic Mountain. Except for the correction of a few misprints, this edition is an exact reproduction of the original. HER.t\IANN J. WEIGAND New Haven, Connecticut June, 1964 CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE IX I. CLASSIFICATION 3 II. ORGANIZATION . 14 III. SuBSTANCE AND ExPOSURE 25 IV. DISEASE . 39 v. THE IRONIC TEMPER. 59 VI. WHAT Is GERMAN? 96 VII. MYSTICISM 140 NoTES • 161 XI "Der geduldige Kiinstler, der in langem Fleiss den figurenreichen, so vielerlei Menschenschicksal im Schatten einer Idee versammelnden Romanteppich, 'Maja.' mit Namen, wob ...." THOMAS !\!ANN'S NOVEL THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN DER ZAUBERBERG I. CLASSIFICATION Let us begin our analysis of the "Zauberberg" by a brief attempt to group it with other novels that are related to it in scope, theme, and design. Of all forms of literary art the novel comes closest to embracing the whole of life in its span, and the number of possible classes that can be set up with regard to its subject matter alone is as great as the number of aspects of life itself. That task we may leave to the cataloguer, confining ourselves here to the pursuit of a few leads that may help our approach to the "Zauberberg" as a living work of art. First of all, the "Zauberberg" presents itself as a pedagogical novel. It is repeatedly styled so in its own pages. We may as well be warned from the outset, however, that there is the same flavor of ironic modesty about this designation as there is about Thomas Mann's frequent reference to his hero as a simple young man, a youth without guile. The literary genre of the pedagogical novel, as known to his­ tories of literature, is always concerned with a very specific sort of education,-an education that sets out to mould the plastic personal­ ity of a child along lines determined by its educators; and the process of education is pronounced complete when the youthful personality has come to conform dependably to the moral pattern that represents the educator's ideal. In the "Zauberberg", true enough, we have two educators, educating at cross purposes to each other, each covet­ ing the mastery over Hans Castorp, like God and the Devil in the medieval mysteries fighting for the possession of the human soul; the pedagogical point of the novel, however, consists in the fact that the hero steers his course between the two, without committing him­ self to the orthodoxy of either. While deriving enormous stimulation 3 4 DER ZAUBERBERG from their exhortations, warnings, and disputes, he dodges all direct attempts to force him into the role of a disciple. Hans Castorp develops, not according to the lines of a pattern imposed from with­ out, but according to an inner law of his own personality that be­ comes manifest by degrees. We are in reality dealing, then, with a novel of self-development rather than with a pedagogical novel, ex­ cept in the wider sense in which Hans Castorp himself formulates the principle of his "pedagogy", when he says to Clavdia in one of those rare moments of ultra-clear consciousness: "Du weisst wohl nicht, dass es et­ "You, of course, do not know that was wie die alchimistisch-hermetische there is such a thing as alchemistic­ Padagogik gibt, Transsubstantiation, hermetic pedagogy, transsubstantia­ und zwar zum Htiheren, Steigerung tion, from lower to higher, ascending also, wenn du mich recht verstehen degrees, if you understand what I willst.