Thomas Mann: The Uses of Tradition - Hardcover

Reed, T. J.

4.8

5 ratings by Goodreads

9780198157427: Thomas Mann: The Uses of Tradition

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198157428 ISBN 13: 9780198157427

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1974

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Based, in part, on close reading of manuscripts and sources at the Zurich Thomas Mann Archive, Reed's study has long established itself as the standard work in English on Mann's fiction and thought. In this new edition, Reed adds a chapter on the new documentation that has appeared since the first edition. He details the main currents in Mann scholarship over the last two decades, suggesting how we should now see the writer, the man, and the political figure, and, above all, the complex relationship between the three.

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Review:

a substantial work of impeccable comprehensive scholarship ... indespensable to anyone doing research on Mann (Library Journal)

we should be most grateful for this carefully researched, well-documented, and usefully indexed work ... this is a study which I hope will inspire careful reading of its text and its primary sources (Modern Language Quarterly)

Donald Prater's A Life is finely nuanced, fair-minded and well-researched, from which his subject emerges with considerable credit ... elegantly written account ... Prater portrays an Olympian magnanimity, with which Mann himself might well have been satisfied. (Daniel Johnson, The Times)

Donald Prater's masterly biography of Thomas Mann succeeds elegantly in its attempt to write a 'readable story' of the author's life 'which can be absorbed by the ordinary mortal'. Prater's welcome critical detachment colour his writing throughout ... Prater has a beautifully sure touch when it comes to setting out the many different strands of this life. His command of the wealth of material allows him to give a well-balanced account ... This biography will help the reader to understand the many difficult steps Mann took along that road and to appreciate the full force of the resulting 'legacy' of a `European Germany'. (Hinrich Siefken, University of Nottingham, MLR, 92.2, 1997)

This impressive biography goes a long way towards satisfying the demand among non-German speakers for an informed, lucid and unbiased account of Thomas Mann's life and works. The great merit of this study is Prater's ability to present the context of Mann's life, against which not only his development as a writer, but also the twists and turns of his personal and political life, are convincingly portrayed. This is a courageous, revealing and wholly readable account. (Forum for Modern Language Studies, XXXIII, 2, 1997)

From the Back Cover:

This book is based on a coherent close reading of Mann's oeuvre, literary and political, and also on manuscripts and sources, and was part of the first phase of literary scholarship that opened up the resources of the Zurich Thomas Mann Archive.

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