Elements of cultural continuity in modern German literature: a study of Goethe, Nietzsche and Mann

Abstract

This dissertation renders in a thematic and chronological line the argument o a Goethean influence concerning the way Nietzsche and Mann understood their position within German culture and reacted to the social and political perspective of their contemporaries. It outlines specific concepts and themes first in the work of Goethe and then it approaches their reflection in Nietzsche's philosophy as well as in Mann's literature. With a special attention given to the particularities of each writer's biography, the dissertation analyses concepts such as: the relationship between nature and art; the place of the artist, the genius, in this relationship; the preference for Classicism as anti-Romanticism and anti-Modernism; the need to return to a a-temporal sense of art; an anti-moral position towards the dysfunctional morality of Modern music, art, society, and politics. As a core argument, the thesis states that in the curse of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries (when German spirituality developed extensively and infiltrated into Germany's public and political life, Goethe, Nietzsche, and Thomas Mann warned about the perils raising from Germany's claims to power and superiority over European civilisation. I assume that Nietzsche and Mann manifested the same attitude as Goethe towards the political upheavals of their times because they all shared into a similar history of ideas manifested in their love for Antiquity and encouraged the concept of cultural dynamics which could ensure a harmonious relationship between Germany and the other European countries. The dissertation is organized on three main chapters which try to meet the questions raised by this core argument first in relation to Goethe and then to Nietzsche and Mann. The first chapter approaches the role of Goethe in the society and culture of the Enlightenment and the idea that the