Literatur und Krankheit im Fin-de-siecle (1890-1914): Thomas Mann im europaischen Kontext.(Book Review)

Publication: The Modern Language Review

Publication Date: 01-JUL-04

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2004 Modern Humanities Research Association

Literatur und Krankheit im Fin-de-siecle (1890-1914): Thomas Mann im europaischen Kontext. Die Davoser Literaturtage 2000. Ed. by THOMAS SPRECHER. (Thomas-Mann-Studien, 26) Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann. 2002. 284 pp. 58 [euro]. ISBN 3465-03163-6 (hbk).

'I wish I had the voice of Homer ] To sing of rectal carcinoma', wrote J. B. S. Haldane, the eminent British scientist, as he was undergoing treatment for cancer in 1964. Haldane's aspiration was shared, and fulfilled, by the young Thomas Mann, the twentieth century's Homer of disease and degeneration, as this collection of papers from literary scholars, historians of medicine, and physicians shows again and in new detail. The volume, the fourth to emerge from the biennial Davoser Literaturtage, focuses on Mann's early work in the context of fin de siecle discourses on disease and degeneration. Contributions range from close readings of particular types such as the nurses in Mann's work (Thomas Sprecher) to surveys of contemporary medical discourses on neurosis and psychosis around 1900 (Dietrich von Engelhardt).

In devoting another volume to the much-researched subject of medicine in Mann's work, the contributors are...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.