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Psychology in the Early Works of Thomas Mann

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2021

Frederick J. Beharriell
Frederick J. Beharriell*
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington
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Extract

Thomas Mann's debt to Sigmund Freud is well-known. It is an important part of the larger question of Freud's influence on twentieth-century literature in general. Conversely, it was two major essays by Mann, “Die Stellung Freuds in der modernen Geistesgeschichte” (1929), and “Freud und die Zukunft” (1936), which did much to establish Freud's reputation as one of the great thinkers of the century. Mann referred to psychoanalysis in many of his works, as witness the caricature of an analyst in Der Zauberberg. He freely admitted its importance for him, as in his confirmation of the apparent Freudianism of the Joseph stories. It remains far from clear, however, just when he first encountered Freud's ideas, and how much he learned from them. It would be particularly desirable to know with certainty whether the new psychological theories came as exciting revelations to the youthful Mann, or whether they merely confirmed conclusions which he had already intuitively reached. The latter possibility is suggested, inter alia, by the interesting anticipations of Freudian ideas in the early works of Arthur Schnitzler. Mann himself remained strangely vague and noncommittal concerning his first acquaintance with the new psychology. His reticence on this point contrasts with the openness and relish with which he discussed the chronology and extent of his debts to Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Wagner.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 77 , Issue 1 , 1962 , pp. 149 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1962

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References

Notes

1 Frederick J. Hoffman, Freudianism and the Literary Mind (New York, 1959) is the basic treatment of the influence of psychoanalysis on literature. On the extent of such influence it is supplemented by Frederick J. Beharriell, “Freud and Literature,” Queen's Quarterly, lxv,1 (1958), 118-125.

2 The chief writers whom Freud knew personally were Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, Romain Rolland, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Arthur Schnitzler, Arnold Zweig, and Stefan Zweig. Of these he thought most highly of Mann, Schnitzler, and Arnold Zweig, according to Ernest Jones, The Life and Works of Sigmund Freud (New York, 1953-57), iii, 427. On the Freud-Schnitzler relationship, see F. J. Beharriell, “Schnitzler's Anticipation of Freud's Dream Theory,” MDU, xlv, 2 (1953), 81-89.

3 See Mann's Lebensabriß; Schopenhauer; and the chapter “Einkehr” in the Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen.

4 See Wolfgang F. Michael, “Thomas Mann auf dem Wege zu Freud,” MLN, lxv (1950), 165-171; Joyce Crick,“Thomas Mann and Psycho-Analysis : The Turning Point,” L&P, x (1960), 45-55; Joyce Crick, “Psycho-Analytic Elements in Thomas Mann's Novel Lotte in Weimar,” L&P, x (1960), 69-75. The last two articles are portions of Mrs. Crick's dissertation, “The Impact of the Theories of Psycho-Analysis on the Later Works of Thomas Mann,” University of London, 1956.

5 “Thomas Mann und die Psychoanalyse,” Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, xi (1925), 247.

6 Joseph G. Brennan, Thomas Mann's World (New York, 1942), p. 64.

7 Thomas Mann (Munich, 1953), p. 64.

8 Hans Mayer, Thomas Mann (Berlin, 1950), pp. 155-162; Henry Hatfield, Thomas Mann (New York, 1951), pp. 161-162; Frank D. Hirschbach, The Arrow and the Lyre: A Study of the Role of Love in the Works of Thomas Mann (The Hague, 1955), p. 79.

9 The Ironic German: A Study of Thomas Mann (Boston and Toronto, 1958), pp. 87-88.

10 Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, xi (1925), 247.

11 Although Arthur Schnitzler, as a medical specialist in the neuroses and editor of the Wiener Klinische Rundschau, did read them. See Frederick J. Beharriell, “Freud's Debts to Literature,” in Psychoanalysis and the Future, edited by Board of Editors of Psychoanalysis (New York, 1957), p. 26.

12 See Ernest Jones, The Life and Works of Sigmund Freud (New York, 1953-57), i, 360-361.

13 André von Gronicka, “Myth Plus Psychology: A Style Analysis of Death in Venice,” GR, xxxi (1956), 191.

14 See, for example, Hoffman, op. cit., pp. 112-113.

15 Mann states in the chapter “Einkehr” of the Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen that he did not read Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung until he was writing of the death of Thomas Buddenbrook. However, he also says, in the same chapter, that Schopenhauer's pessimism had then, for some years, been all the rage in intellectual Europe. The primary influence of Schopenhauer is unmistakable in these early works, even if it came, at first, indirectly through Nietzsche.

16 Gesammelte Werke (Berlin, 1956), ix, 33.

17 See, for example, Freud's Traum und Telepathie, and the chapter “Traum und Okkultismus” in his Neue Folge der Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse, Gesammelte Werke (London, 1940-41), xv.

18 Mann, Erzählungen ([Frankfurt], 1959), pp. 72-73. An interesting probability brought to my attention by Professor Heinrich Henel is that the youthful Mann has from Novalis not only the idea that a man can will his own death, but also the arresting phrase “an der Sphäre des Todes saugen” (fourth “Hymne an die Nacht”); Novalis in turn seems indebted to Goethe's Faust for this and other phrases. See Max Kommerell in Gedicht und Gedanke, ed. H. O. Burger (Halle, 1942), pp. 205 and 221.

19 This view of art, although later revised, is implicit in many of Freud's early writings: as early as 1897 he wrote, in a draft he did not publish, “Der Mechanismus der Dichtung ist derselbe wie der hysterischen Phantasien” (Aus den Anfängen der Psychoanalyse, London, 1950, p. 222).

20 See Mann's Lebensabriß, passim, and the chapter “Einkehr” in the Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, passim.

21 An interesting parallel to Adler's later theory of “constitutional” or “organ” inferiority.

22 For a discussion of this little-known story, see Beharriell, “Freud's Debts to Literature” (above, note 11), pp. 24-25.

23 See Crick, “Mann and Psycho-Analysis” (above, note 4), passim.