|
|
Article: Difference and demeanor: literary anti-Semitism in Thomas Mann's Joseph novels.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- The Germanic Review
- Article date:
- June 22, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Since Thomas Mann himself repeatedly claimed not to have written a Judenbuch but to have sung a "heiter-ernstes Lied vom Menschen" instead, with only very few exceptions, (1) Joseph und seine Bruder was never really read as a Judenbuch, that is, as a novel intimately related to Judaism. Despite all political and private upheavals between Mann's first inspiration on his journey through Egypt in 1925 and the closing sentences of Joseph, der Ernahrer written in his Californian exile in 1942, this self-explanation remains remarkably stable. Immediately after the completion of the second volume, Mann notes in a letter to Eduard Jedidjah Chavkin dated August 1934: "Der 'Joseph' ...