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In an essay devoted to Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain), Thomas Mann drew attention to the density of mythic allusions in his literary work as well as to the importance of music, writing that
the novel was always a symphony for me, a work of counterpoint, a web of themes, whereby the idea of musical motifs [Leitmotive] is important … I myself have drawn attention to the impact of Richard Wagner's art in my own works … I especially follow Wagner in the use of leading motifs carried into the narrative … not just in a merely naturalistic manner or reductionistic treatment, but instead in the symbolic representation of music.1
Although the general importance of music for Mann is well recognized,2 the specific ways in which he responded to Wagner's music dramas demand closer attention. In a recent study, Dieter Borchmeyer observes that, "For Thomas Mann, Wagner's music dramas are covert novels, just as his own novels strive to be clandestine music dramas."3 Drawing richly on his musical and dramatic insights and capacity for ironic reinterpretation, Thomas Mann developed Wagnerian motifs in ways that are sometimes far from obvious, and his shorter works display this tendency just as the novels do. Such allusions and affinities exist not only in direct forms as in the novellas Tristan and Wälsungenblut (Blood of the Walsungs) but also in more veiled, yet far-reaching literary contexts.
Der Zauberberg and Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice) were closely linked projects. Mann originally envisioned Der Zauberberg as a novella, a "humoristisches Gegenstück" (humorous counterpart) or "Satyrspiel" (satyr play) in relation to Der Tod in Venedig. In both works, the main character lingers in a fateful milieu shadowed by illness, intoxicated by his love for a Slavic figure whom he admires (at least at first) from a distance. Whereas Der Tod in Venedig underwent a concentrated genesis before appearing in print in 1912,4 the paired literary project, Der Zauberberg, evolved over more than a decade into the sprawling novel we know, absorbing through its dark framing conclusion the author's response to the First World War and its troubled political aftermath. Der Zauberberg displays intricate points of connection...