«Goethe hat alles gesagt»: J. W. von Goethe in Thomas Mann’s letters

Reznik Liudmila Viktorovna ORCID: 0009-0008-6395-3374 Postgraduate student, Department of History of Foreign Literature, Lomonosov Moscow State University 119991, Russia, Moscow, Leninskie Gory, 1 lyudmilareznik1996@gmail.com

The personality and biography of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) were the subject of interest of Thomas Mann (1875-1955) throughout almost his entire creative life, which was reflected in the short story "Death in Venice" (Der Tod in Venedig, 1912), the novels "Lotte in Weimar" (Lotte in Weimar, 1939), "Doctor Faustus" (Doktor Faustus, 1947) and other works of the writer. The source of the original idea of many of Mann's works was, to one degree or another, episodes from his life, literary heritage, and even individual Goethe statements or lines. In 1922-1949, Mann wrote over a dozen essays and made several presentations ("Goethe and Tolstoy" (Goethe und Tolstoi, 1921), "Goethe as a representative of the Burgher era" (Goethe als Repräsentant des bürgerlichen Zeitalters, 1932), etc.), the main theme of which was the figure of Goethe, considered in various aspects: as an autocharacteristics, as a German idea, as a theme of measuring European (and world) culture (by itself, in conjunction with the Romantics, R. Wagner, F. Nietzsche; in relation to the political situation of the 1930s), Goethe in the context of the problem of gender or the demonism of creativity.Finally, Mann's creative competition with his contemporaries (R. Steiner, G. Hesse, G. Hauptmann), who were interested in Goethe both in itself and in the context of the problems of symbolism, the culture of German (as well as Austrian) Art Nouveau, also played a role.

An analysis of certain aspects of the Mann/Goethe problem can be found in the articles by T. N. Vasilchikova ^[1], L. K. Gabdulatzyanova ^[2], A. I. Zherebin ^[3], A. Y. Zinovieva ^[4], V. M. Tolmachev ^[5]. The purpose of this article is to systematize the numerous references to Goethe in T. Mann's letters, as well as to describe the dynamics of Goethe's image and the process of turning it into an author's myth.

Despite the fact that some of the letters written before the writer left Germany in 1933 have not been preserved, at least fifteen hundred letters of Mann 1889-1955 have been published at the moment. The most complete, three-volume collection of letters was prepared for publication in the 1960s by Erica Mann, the writer's eldest daughter. In the preface to it, E. Mann notes the importance of "this sphere — the sphere of letters", because, in her opinion, it is in it that her father's "magnetic personality" manifests itself "in the most direct way": in letters, "he gives himself away as he was; [...] there he lives for us again" (our lane — L. R.) ^{[6, p. XII]}.

In Russian literary criticism, Mann's letters were the object of research by S. K. Apt, who selected, translated into Russian and provided comments on 300 "the most characteristic letters for the spiritual appearance of the writer" ^{[7, p. 376]}, published as an independent publication in 1975 — for the centenary of Mann. In the afterword, S. K. Apt draws attention to the fact that the letters "record the constancy of Goethe's dominant role in Thomas Mann's associations" ^{[8, p. 378]}. Goethe's name not only appears on the pages of Mann's letters in connection with his discussions about literature and creativity, but is also constantly mentioned in letters dedicated to the fate of Germany and the Germans, and Goethe's aphorisms are the main source of quotations for the writer.

However, T. Mann's rapprochement with Goethe took place gradually, which was due to the artistic proximity of Mann's work at its early stage to the legacy of G. E. Lessing, T. Fontane and F. von Schiller, when A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche and R. Wagner acted as his philosophical and ideological landmarks. Only later, in the words of B. Blume, "Thomas Mann saw in Goethe's life and nature an enhanced reflection and resolution of his own mental contradictions" ^{[9, p. 277]}.

Judging by the published letters, the first mentions of Goethe's name appear only in 1910-1911. (Mann was 35 years old at that time) in connection with the writer's arguments about the talent of G. von Kleist and R. Wagner. In a letter to Brother Heinrich dated 11/17/1910, Mann writes: "I read Kleist's prose to pull myself together, and after Kohlhaas I was angry at Goethe, who rejected him [Kleist] because of his "hypochondria" and "spirit of contradiction"" (per. our — L. R.) ^{[6, p. 82]}. In a letter to E. Bertram dated 10/16/1911, speaking about his attitude towards Wagner, Mann argues: "Flaubert, like Goethe, always has to be talked about when you have to seriously settle accounts with Wagner. The only bad thing is that both of them might have accepted him — Goethe out of moral tolerance for everything superbly creative, and Flaubert, for example, out of a penchant for the barbarously refined" (per. our - L. R.) ^{[10, pp. 10-11]}. In a letter to Julius Babu dated 09/14/1911: "Goethe had to perceive Wagner as a fundamentally repulsive phenomenon. Of course, he was morally very tolerant of great facts and consequences, and sometimes I wonder if he wouldn't have answered us like that: "This man is too big for you." But that would be his business. Germans should be faced with a choice: Goethe or Wagner. Both are not good together. But I'm afraid they'll say "Wagner." Or maybe not after all? After all, shouldn't every German know deep down that Goethe is an incomparably more respected and trustworthy leader and national hero than this sneaky dwarf from Saxony with explosive talent and a nasty temper? That's the question" (per. our — L. R.) ^{[6, p. 91]}.

These first mentions of Goethe in Mann's letters are combined by reference to his authority, but in them he still does not identify himself with Goethe. According to J. Elzaghe and H. Affolter ^{[11, 2019]}, the lack of references to Goethe, as well as the desire to present his image in an ironic way, is a consequence, in a psychoanalytic light, of Mann's "rivalry" with Goethe's "Vater—Imago" and a special kind of self-identification that goes beyond literary creativity.

The interest in Goethe initially arose in the context of the issues that interested Mann (problems of eroticism, the nature of creativity and genius), and became the basis for the short stories "A Hard Hour" (Schwere Stunde, 1905) and "Death in Venice", in which elements of Goethe's biography are played out. But Mann's perception of Goethe changed over time, and in 1915 the writer came to realize that Goethe was by no means the unflappable "Olympian" as he had portrayed him ten years earlier in the novella "A Hard Hour". The starting point for this "correction" of Goethe's image, according to the Japanese researcher Ts. Ito ^{[12, 1962]}, Mann becomes interested in the love story of 72-year-old Goethe to 17-year-old Ulrika von Levetzov, whose study revealed to Mann the "Dionysian foundations" of Goethe's Olympic-Apollonian nature. In 1920, Mann wrote back to the poet and writer Karl Maria Weber comments on the idea of "Death in Venice": "The subject of my story was [...] the grotesquely presented story of the elder Goethe and that girl in Marienbad, [...] a painful, touching and great story that I may one day write" ^{[7, p. 27]}. And although the short story "Goethe in Marienbad" was never created by Mann, two decades later another episode of Goethe's biography became the basis for the novel "Lotte in Weimar".

In a letter to translator Alexander Eliasberg in 1914, Mann, in connection with the translation of D. S. Merezhkovsky's book "Eternal Companions" sent to him, shares his impressions of the essays "Goethe" and "Cervantes" that he had already read: "Wonderful! Truly admirable! I do not know anything higher in critical, spiritual knowledge. And sometimes, where it is connected with a subject, as in Goethe's, there is something super-spiritual, something mystically corporeal in this knowledge, which is almost impossible to talk about, but this was already in his great Tolstoy analysis earlier — as I believe, since Goethe and Tolstoy, whom he considers as opposites, they have more in common than Goethe and the disembodied, disembodied Dostoevsky" (per. our — L. R.) ^{[6, p. 114]}. In this letter, you can already see the idea of Mann's future report "Goethe and Tolstoy", which will be written only 7 years later (in 1921). From Mann's diary entries, it becomes known that the writer finally formed the concept of the report after acquaintance with the diaries of young Tolstoy, the first volume of which he received from the publishing house of Georg Muller 12 December 1918 and, starting reading on the same day, was deeply impressed by him: "In the evenings, Tolstoy's diary. Along with Goethe, among the constantly living spirits, he is the one whose form of life attracts me the most, and whose sense of life through all his statements most directly animates mine. His work is a magnificent and organic combination of sensuality and moralism" (per. nash — L. R.) ^{[13, p. 107]}. It follows from this that Mann already at that time connected Tolstoy with Goethe, and both of them with himself. It is also important that the writer's interest from the very beginning is not caused by a work of fiction, but by diary entries, and focuses on the personalities of the writers. For Mann, as for Goethe and Tolstoy, the mutual penetration of "poetry" and "truth" was an integral part of the artist's existence.

At the time of the creation of the book "Reflections of the Apolitical" (Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, 1915-1918), in which Goethe's name is repeatedly found, Thomas Mann's spiritual world was still dominated by the "triumvirate" — Schopenhauer, Wagner and Nietzsche. This influence of the "three pessimists" gradually faded after the First World War, and since 1921 (when Mann gave his first report on Goethe), the figure of the Weimar classic has come to the fore for the writer. In a reply to Ernst Bertram (dated 06/10/1921) to a birthday congratulatory letter, Mann already quotes Goethe directly in connection with his life: "Forty-six years! And I feel so backward, so guilty in front of the whole world. But as for this world, from an early age I often repeat to myself Goethe's wise saying: "If you have created something, the world will do everything possible to prevent you from ever creating something like this again" (per. nashe - L. R.) ^{[10, p. 96]}. Discussing the creation of "Reflections of the Apolitical", Mann writes to Felix Berto (dated 1.03.1923): "The well-known anti-liberality of this confessional book is explained by my attitude towards Goethe and Nietzsche, in whom I see my highest mentors, if not shamelessly imposing myself on such figures as disciples" ^{[7, p. 34]}. "Goethe has said everything" ("Goethe hat alles gesagt" ^{[6, p. 363]}), Mann summarizes in a letter to screenwriter and writer Alfred Neumann in 1934, and indeed, since the 1930s, Goethe's personality has been a measure of the most important things for the writer — creativity, morality and even his own personality: "And I even think, nevertheless, that I managed to build my later life on the model of Goethe" ^{[7, p. 159]} (from a letter to E. von Kahler dated 01/16/1944).

The bulk of the references to Goethe in Mann's letters fall on the jubilee years of Goethe (1932 — the centenary of his death and 1949 — the bicentennial of his birth), as well as on the years of work on the novel "Lotte in Weimar" (1936-1939). The writer pays great attention to Goethe as the protagonist of his novel "Lotte in Weimar I. Dirzen draws attention to the fact that the creation of the novel took place during the years in which Mann worked on the tetralogy "Joseph and his brothers", which undoubtedly reflected on "Lotte in Weimar", since "the world of myths was present in the mind of Thomas Mann" ^{[14, p. 193]} and He significantly influenced some aspects of Goethe's image in his perception. In a letter from K. Kerenyi dated 11/16/1939, Mann asks a rhetorical question: "... in your article there were many ideas included in my current mental occupation, in Goethe's novel. Isn't he ultimately a "mythology"?" ^{[7, p. 102]}.

In 1933, an entry appeared in Mann's diary indicating his intention to write a work of fiction about Goethe: "A short story or a theatrical play about the visit of old Lotte Buff-Kestner again sank into my soul" (per. our — L. R.) ^{[15, p. 251]}. This episode from Goethe's life became known to Mann thanks to the book by psychoanalyst F. A. Tailhaber "Goethe. Paul and Eros" (Goethe. Sexus und Eros, 1929), which quoted an excerpt from a letter from Charlotte Kestner to her son (in which she shares her impressions of the reception at Goethe's house) and a brief entry from Goethe's own diary about the visit of "Madame Kestner". Based on this laconic plot, Thomas Mann in his novel uses intertextuality, citationality and the technique of "multiple reflection" (throughout the first six chapters, Goethe is present in the novel only indirectly, in Lotte's conversations with characters who perform a function akin to messengers in ancient drama, but their stories, at first supposedly revealing the essence of Goethe, then the veil around him is being tightened more and more tightly) it is possible to create a multifaceted artistic image (not identical to either the biographical Goethe or the traditional idea of Goethe as a "Weimar classic"). Mann's letters allow us to trace both the progress of work on the novel and the reaction of contemporaries to its publication. Separate letters to the American journalist Agnes Meyer, the classical philologist Karl Kerenyi and other addressees represent the writer's detailed auto-commentary on the novel about Goethe.

Finally, it is also important that Mann's correspondence itself turns out to be the material for the text of the novel. So, in the stream of consciousness of the awakening Goethe in the seventh chapter, Mann includes "whole passages from his own journalistic articles and letters" ^{[8, p. 8]}. Mann's widely known quote, said by him in an interview with The New York Times (02/22/1938): "Where I am, there is Germany. I carry my German culture with me" (per. our — L. R.), was almost verbatim repeated by him in the novel on behalf of Goethe: "I keep my German essence to myself, and they with their evil philistinism, in which they see their German essence, let them go to hell! They think they are Germany. But Germany is me. And if she dies, she will live in me" ^{[16, pp. 633-634]}.

In a letter to his younger brother Victor Mann dated 10/14/1946, Thomas Mann describes an involuntary "hoax" that occurred in the same year as part of the Nuremberg trials, when the British prosecutor quoted "Goethe's statements about the Germans, thinking that according to the original, but in fact — according to "Lotte in Weimar", but the error was soon noticed: "[...] The Embassy in Washington embarrassingly asked me how the situation is here. I replied that I could vouch for the fact that Goethe really could well think and speak exactly as he thinks and speaks with me, and therefore, in some higher sense, the prosecutor quoted him correctly after all. [...] The episode turned out to be ticklish" ^{[7, pp. 209-210]}.

Mann repeatedly addressed letters to the translators of his works, for example, commenting on the nuances of translating the key seventh chapter of Lotte in Weimar, which is based on Goethe's lengthy internal monologue. Realizing the difficulty of the translator's work, Mann writes to Louise Servian, who is working on the French translation of the novel: "... I want to send you a few [...] comforting words about the almost, probably, insurmountable at first glance difficulties with which this fatal piece of prose puzzles the translator. I can imagine that you are depressed by this and are in some confusion. [...] I myself am of the opinion that in foreign-language editions of Lotte in Weimar this chapter should be shortened and simplified, since some hints and literary reminiscences are probably possible only in the German text, and even in German today, too, hardly" ^{[7, p. 106]}.

In addition, in the letters, Mann gives detailed answers to interested readers to the question of the reality of the novel's finale — the scene of a conversation between Lotte and Goethe in a carriage: "Whenever I am asked to resolve a dispute, I want to agree with both sides. But after thinking about it carefully, I must admit: the scales are tipping towards unreality a little more. [...] The meeting in the carriage is still not as historical as the lunch. Goethe did not accompany Lotte after the theater. In connection with your letter, I read my book again. She is still very, very close to my soul, and it was a good time when I wrote her" ^{[7, pp. 221-222]}.

Mann purposefully sought the points of intersection of his life with the personality and biography of Goethe and attached symbolic importance even to everyday details in which he noticed his resemblance to him. Starting with the Burgher origin and the innate duality of Mann's nature ("Asking myself what properties were passed on to me from whom, I invariably recall Goethe's famous poem and establish that, like him, I inherited the 'severity of honest rules' from my father, and the 'cheerful-carefree disposition', in other words, receptivity to everything artistically tangible and, in the broadest sense of the word, "an attraction to fiction" — from the mother" ^{[17, p. 93]}), pumping the fact that Mann used the same cologne as Goethe ^{[18, p. 254]}, and was very pleased when he learned that the first crew Goethe appeared only at the age of 50 (as well as the first car from Mann himself) ^{[11, p. 11]}.

The desire for life creation, the creation of the author's myth of Goethe and the myth of himself as his immediate successor, extended to Mann's letters, in which he directly or indirectly identified himself with Goethe. Thus, in a letter to Agnes Meyer in 1943, Mann writes: "You know, of course, that the ridiculously creepy atmosphere with which I surrounded Goethe in the novel was self-flagellation and self-ridicule. That I can laugh at myself is, after all, a human trait, isn't it? [...] I made Goethe, my father's prototype, much worse" ^{[7, p. 144]}. While working on the novel "Dr. Faustus" in a letter from K. Kerenyi dated 02/12/1946, Mann mentions the "coldness" inherent in the artist (one of the key motifs in both the novel about Adrian Leverkun and the novel about Goethe): "I do not want to defend Goethe's coldness. I understand her too well, and I have a lot of her myself. But I know that Goethe, like all our great ones, like Luther, Bismarck, Nietzsche, was, on the one hand, the beauty and pride of the Germans, and on the other, as a formative force, and a rock for them. At Lotte in Weimar I tried to make this duality felt in all its "irritable comicality" ^{[7, p. 207]}. The motives of "sacrifice" and "renunciation", the problems of the correlation of "poetry" and "truth", the "duality" of genius and the special parallelism of his creative life with the fate of Germany allow us to consider the novel "Dr. Faustus" as the next stage in the development of the Goethe theme in Mann's work after "Lotte in Weimar".

In addition, Goethe is an immediate incentive for Mann's long-delayed trip to Europe in 1949, after 16 years spent in exile, when Goethe's 200th anniversary is widely celebrated: "You know: This is Goethe's year, and I knew in advance that I couldn't dodge it. And a rather long program of duties has been drawn up: at the end of April we will leave for Chicago, where the dance will begin, then I will read in Washington about "Goethe and democracy", then in New York, then we will go to England, then to Sweden, from there to Switzerland, possibly to Austria [...]" ^{[7, pp. 258-259]} (from a letter to A. McLeish dated February 27, 1949).

Mann's myth-making extends to his loved ones: for example, in a letter from Guido Devescovi dated May 1, 1955, Mann compares himself and his older brother Heinrich Mann with Goethe and Schiller: "But I was indescribably shocked [...] when, shortly before his death, Heinrich presented me with one of his books with the inscription: "To my to the great brother who wrote "Dr. Faustus"“. What's it? How is that? After all, he has always been a great brother! And I put my hands on my hips and remembered Goethe's words about the stupid dispute of the Germans, who is greater, he or Schiller: "They should be glad that they have two such guys!"" ^{[7, p. 362]}. Mann also speaks about the suicide of Klaus' son in the words of Goethe (from an 1830 letter in which he mentions the death of his son Augustus in the same words): "But I have not felt quite well for a long time (since the "departure of my son"), and here I had to prepare a speech for Frankfurt – with great difficulty" ^{[7, p. 261]}.

The last mention of Goethe's name in Mann's letters is a letter addressed to his youngest son Michael Mann and his family on 08/19/1955 — 3 days before the writer's death. In it, Mann reports that he is reading a book about Mozart and, out of established habit, compares him to Goethe: "He [Mozart] was also an aristocrat and, unlike Haydn, understood little of the common people, like Goethe" (per. our — L. R.) ^{[19, p. 418]}.

To summarize, it is worth noting that letters (along with essays and diaries) are an integral part of Thomas's artistic work Manna, acting as an important space for self-comment and introspection. Goethe's name appears in Mann's letters for 45 years (from 1910 to 1955), during which the writer's perception of Goethe's personality changed — from the Apollonian image of the "Olympian" and the divine "child of nature" to the "demonic" genius, the Dionysian figure torn by contradictions of his own artistic nature ("I am the first victim, and I am the sacrificer" ^{[16, p. 733]}), in which Mann found the mythological basis of his fate and his work.