XLIII
Following Schwerdtfeger’s death, L. suffers through a period of poor health and stagnating creative powers. By 1927, however, he has fully recovered and not only composes a number of new pieces, but also conceives the first ideas for what will become his final work, The Lamentation of Doctor Faustus.
Time of composition: October 30–November 7, 1946. Time of narration: March 1945. Narrated time: 1926–1927.
| whose thousand-year history […] proven by its outcome to have gone fatally amiss | The question whether something essential had gone amiss with German culture was vigorously debated during the postwar years, as was the question whether Germans as a whole were to be blamed for the crimes committed during the Nazi period. Mann commented on these questions not only in fiction, but also in important essays and lectures, such as “The End,” “The Camps,” and “Germany and the Germans” (all 1945). |
| as the German proverb has it | Not exactly a proverb, but the summary of a couplet from Goethe’s Tame Xenias. |
| his neglected and decaying teeth | TM had already used decaying teeth as a symbol of larger cultural decline in his early novel Buddenbrooks. |
| “emptiness, virtual idiocy” […] “pray for my poor soul” | The quotations in this paragraph all first occur in the conversation with the devil on 251/344, though Woods varies the translation somewhat. |
| tendency towards musical “prose” | The term “musical prose” was commonly used by Schoenberg and his disciples. |
| Trio for violin, viola, and cello | Schoenberg completed just such a trio shortly before TM wrote this chapter in November 1946. |
| “his spirit and capercaillie” | |
| | Some early modern sources used by TM also report that Doctor Faustus studied in Cracow. |
| “Sorowe did move Dr. Faustum that he made writ of his lamentation” | A quote from chapter 63 of the Chapbook. |