La stanza di Barbablù. I diari di Thomas Mann come fonte psicologica e storica

Abstract

The paper analyzes Thomas Mann’s Tagebücher as a political-historical and a psychological source. The author discusses some fundamental and example “junctions” in this sense. On the historical-political level, the analysis focuses on the one hand on Mann’s stance on Räterepublik, on the other on the early years of his exile, framed through the lens of the Meerfahrt mit “Don Quijote”. On the psychological level, the author analyzes the structure of Mann’s daily life, between Ordnung-Unordnung: the theme of homosexuality and eroticism in the great writer leads to the link between eros and destruction. The analysis reveals the great significance of the Tagebücher both in terms of the reconstruction of the figure of Thomas Mann and, through Mann, in terms of historical and cultural interpretation of the early decades of the Twentieth century.