Love, music, and politics in Thomas Mann's 'Tristan,' 'Der Zauberberg', and 'Doktor Faustus'

In this dissertation I examine questions regarding politically engaged literature through a study of love and music in Thomas Mann's "Tristan," Der Zauberberg, and Doktor Faustus. I argue that Mann addresses the political issues of how to reconcile individual freedom with the formation of community and how to bring theory into practice. I demonstrate that Mann's ideal is a republican community described with a musical metaphor: individuals brought together by love form a single work of music in which each voice is both particular and necessary. Furthermore, I argue that Mann engages the reader to realize this theory in practice through the content and discursive structure of these works. My study moves between close readings and theoretical concerns with the political significance of love and musical expression to argue that Mann develops an erotic theory of politics.;My secondary concern in the dissertation is to examine the development of Mann's critical engagement with Romanticism, particularly with the thought of Arthur Schopenhauer, the music and thought of Richard Wagner, and late nineteenth-century Wagnerianism. I argue that Mann critiques the Schopenhauerian turn as a result of which the emancipatory potential of Romantic love is lost as subjective freedom subsequently is theorized as a loss of self. In each of the works examined, Mann redirects love from a desire for death to a desire for life in his critique of the Wagnerian "Liebestod" and the Romantic "Sympathie mit dem Tode." I follow the progression of his Entromantisierung from "Tristan" through Doktor Faustus in connection with the democratization of his political thought. I argue that Doktor Faustus completes the process in that Mann no longer looks to German Romanticism for the model community, but rather turns to the serial music of Arnold Schonberg both for the narrative structure of the novel and for a community in which each individual retains expressive freedom. I conclude with an examination of the relevance of my study of Mann for contemporary discussions on politically engaged literature.