Rebecca SC French 602F2576 MA in German Studies - Rhodes ...

among these writers, that they would never be regarded as more than epigoni 26 in the wake of the
phenomenal successes of Goethe, particularly his classical literature. This, together with the
reality and immediacy of the political situation, led to the gradual but definite shift towards a
style now known as Bürgerlicher Realismus, of which the early Thomas Mann, along with
Theodor Fontane, Theodor Storm and Wilhelm Raabe, are regarded as examples. Characteristic
of realism was the view that art could no longer exist for its own sake and this, together with the
Vormärz „legacy‟ of immediate and direct involvement in political concerns, created room for
more socially relevant art. Literature now displayed more restrained emotion but richer and
more detailed descriptions, as well as a more subjective and introspective interaction with the
outer world. (Grabert et al. 1978: 205f.)
The identity of the Bürger I have described is personified in Mann‟s Doktor Faustus narrator
Serenus Zeitblom, Leverkühn‟s steadfast and faithful friend. A humanist with a sound,
traditional, classical education, sensitive and loyal, a teacher devoted, but by no means limited
to, his area of knowledge, content in his marriage, comfortably-situated and well-regarded in his
social circle, politically conservative and reserved in his views, Zeitblom conveys the very
essence of the way of being and of interacting with the world that is readily identified as
bürgerlich. There is, however, one aspect in which Zeitblom fails to fully embody the Bürger
identity – that of his Roman Catholic faith. Heimendahl elaborates on the specifically Protestant
core of the Bürger, basing his exploration on Thomas Mann‟s discussion of Nietzsche in his
Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen. There is repeated reference to the seemingly inseparable
constellation “Bürgerlichkeit - Deutschtum - Protestantismus” (1998: 72) and he quotes Mann on
Nietzsche and the “ethische[ ] Tragödie seines Lebens, dieses unsterblichen europäischen
Schauspiels von Selbstüberwindung, Selbstzüchtigung, Selbstkreuzigung, – wo anders sind sie
zu finden, als in dem Protestantismus des Naumburger Pastorsohnes [.]” In my view, however,
what „saves‟ Zeitblom from exclusion from the ranks of the rein Bürgerliche is what appears to
be his primary commitment to humanism, in his own words: “[meine katholische Herkunft hat]
selbstverständlich meinen inneren Menschen gemodelt und beeinflußt, jedoch ohne daß sich aus
dieser Lebenstönung je ein Widerspruch zu meiner humanistischen Weltanschauung [...] ergeben
hätte.“ (Mann, Th. 1948: 16)
26 Karl L. Immerman‟s novel Die Epigonen (1836) would go on to give its name to this group of “postclassical
writers” (Friederich 1961: 160).
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