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Metaphysical Mirroring: The Musical Structure of Society in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus and Hermann Hesse’s Das Glasperlenspiel
- German Studies Review
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 41, Number 1, February 2018
- pp. 1-17
- 10.1353/gsr.2018.0000
- Article
- Additional Information
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abstract:
Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus and Hermann Hesse’s Das Glasperlenspiel are novels in which music clearly plays a significant role. This article explores the ways these two authors use analogies to dodecaphonic and baroque music in order to engage with an early German romantic ideal first expressed by Novalis, i.e., the idea that music, language, nature, and mathematics are autonomous systems which should, in a perfect world, mirror each other.