August von Platen in the discourse of homosexuality: From the age of Goethe to Thomas Mann (1821--1936)

August von Platen (1796--1835) has had a prominent place in anthologies of German poetry. Because he was one of the first major writers of modern times to speak openly of his love for men, however, the interpretation of his role in modern literary history has been marred by controversy. Despite the obvious significance of Platen's role, his historical impact at the points where literature and homosexuality intersect has seldom received serious scholarly attention. This dissertation fills the gap by carefully tracing the complex lines in Platen's literary reception between 1821, the year of Platen's first published efforts, and 1936, when the last significant research on Platen appeared before the World War II. These lines are intertwined with the discourse about homosexuality, for which Platen often acted as a catalyst.The dissertation documents reactions to Platen in context. Platen alienated contemporaries, among them Goethe, by vehement attacking critics. In the subsequent war of words, in Die Bader von Lucca (1830), Heine attacked Platen's sexuality. Stefan George and Thomas Mann, however, owed much to Platen's aesthetics, which suited the cultural trends of the Fin de Siecle , to camouflage their homosexual desires. This influence is evident in George's poetic cycle Algabal (1892), and in Mann's novella Tod in Venedig (1912). Mann participated in the Platen-Gesellschaft (1925--1936), the publications of which express mixed signals of homosexuality and fascism and include a contribution from Benito Mussolini. Writings of the Platen-Gesellschaft also demonstrate the degeneration of homosexual discourse during the Weimar Republic and the early years of Nazism.A neglected area of Platen's legacy featured here occurs outside the established German literary canon. Platen's unabridged Tagebucher (1896--1900) influenced pioneering psychoanalysts. These diaries also inspired articles about Platen in Der Eigene and Jahrbuch fur sexuelle Zwischenstufen, the first gay periodicals. German homosexual studies were first translated into English by Xavier Mayne in The Intersexes (1908), a sexology treated here in detail. In this work, Mayne upheld Platen as a cultural icon for the nascent gay community. He also treated Platen in other writings, such as in Imre (1906), which is considered the first American gay novel.