Overview
- Summary
- The dissertation is a study of the dialectic of culture and barbarism in Mann's novel and of analogous themes, structures and motifs in Syberberg's Hitler-film. After a review of the critics who interpret Doktor Faustus as a "daemonization of history," an alternative is presented in the form of close readings of passages in which the narrator's unacknowledged fascination with "das Damonische" decisively shapes his view of events and people. Mann's strategy of highlighting the narrator as fascinated spectator is continued by Syberberg in his exploration of the viewer's own fascination in Hitler, ein Film. Notions such as "re-barbarization" and the unity of highest and lowest in Mann's novel are shown to have as their counterparts similar themes and structures in Syberberg's film. The connection in Doktor Faustus between Adrian Leverkuhn's hybris and that of Germany finds an analogue in the notion of "felix culpa" (fortunate fault), which Syberberg employs as a paradoxical figure of compensation in his film. The issue of anti-Semitism, which has arisen in connection with Syberberg's recent book, is shown to be relevant to the interpretation of the film, since "felix culpa" is the organizing principle of historical understanding in both the film and the book, Vom Ungluck und Gluck der Kunst in Deutschland (1990).
- Format
- Book
- Published
- [Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 1992
- Notes
-
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, 1992.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 238-250).
Photocopy. Ann Arbor, Mich. : UMI Dissertation Services, 1996. 23 cm.
Dissertations and Theses
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- External Link
-
Electronic version from ProQuest
- Additional Form
-
Electronic version(s) available internally at USHMM.
- Physical Description
- 250 pages
Keywords & Subjects
- Record last modified:
- 2024-06-21 16:47:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib27702
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