''Tonio Kröger'' () is a novella by

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...

, written early in 1901, when he was 25. It was first published in 1903.

A. A. Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers i ...

in New York published the first American edition in 1936, translated by

Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter (June 15, 1876 – April 26, 1963) was an American translator and writer, best known for translating almost all of the works of Thomas Mann for their first publication in English. Personal life Helen Tracy Porter was the ...

Plot summary

The narrative follows the course of a man's life from his schoolboy days to his adulthood. The son of a north German merchant and a "Southern" mother (Consuelo) with artistic talents, Tonio inherited qualities from both sides of his family. As a child, he experiences conflicting feelings for the bourgeois people around him. He feels both superior to them in his insights and envious of their innocent vitality. This conflict continues into Tonio's adulthood, when he becomes a famous writer living in southern Germany. "To be an artist," he comes to believe, "one has to die to everyday life." These issues are only partially resolved when Tonio travels north to visit his hometown. While there, Tonio is mistaken for an escaped criminal, thereby reinforcing his inner suspicion that the artist must be an outsider relative to "respectable" society. As

Erich Heller Erich Heller (27 March 1911 – 5 November 1990) was a British essayist, known particularly for his critical studies in German-language philosophy and literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Biography Heller was born at Chomutov ...

—who knew Thomas Mann personally—observed, ''Tonio Kröger''s theme is that of the "artist as an exile from reality" (with

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...

's ''

Torquato Tasso Torquato Tasso ( , also , ; 11 March 154425 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem ''Gerusalemme liberata'' (Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between ...

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and

Grillparzer Franz Seraphicus Grillparzer (15 January 1791 – 21 January 1872) was an Austrian writer who was considered to be the leading Austrian dramatist of the 19th century. His plays were and are frequently performed at the famous Burgtheater in Vien ...

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Sappho Sappho (; el, Σαπφώ ''Sapphō'' ; Aeolic Greek ''Psápphō''; c. 630 – c. 570 BC) was an Archaic Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her Greek lyric, lyric poetry, written to be sung while ...

818 __NOTOC__ Year 818 ( DCCCXVIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Vikings known as Rus' (Norsemen) plunder the north coast of Anatolia ...

for company).Erich Heller, ''The Disinherited Mind: Essays in Modern German Literature and Thought'' (Cambridge, Bowes & Bowes, 1952), p. 167.

Cf. The abbreviation ''cf.'' (short for the la, confer/conferatur, both meaning "compare") is used in writing to refer the reader to other material to make a comparison with the topic being discussed. Style guides recommend that ''cf.'' be used onl ...

'' id.'', ''The Disinherited Mind'' (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1961), p. 187. Yet it was also Erich Heller who, earlier, in his own youth, had diagnosed the main theme of ''Tonio Kröger'' to be the infatuation and entanglements of a passionate heart, destined to give shape to, intellectualize, its feelings in artistic terms.Erich Heller, ''Flucht aus dem zwanzigsten Jahrhundert: Eine kulturkritische Skizze'' (Vienna, Saturn-Verlag, 1938), p. 9.

Connection to other works

''Tonio Kröger'' forms a pair with the more famous story, ''

Death in Venice ''Death in Venice ''(German: ''Der Tod in Venedig'') is a novella by German author Thomas Mann, published in 1912. It presents an ennobled writer who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed by the sight of a Poli ...

'' (''Der Tod in Venedig''). They both describe the life of an artist and express Thomas Mann's views on art. In one story the artist travels from south to north, in the other from north to south. One journey ends in a tenuous reconciliation, and the other in death. But, as T. J. Reed has pointed out, :"In ''Der Tod in Venedig'', Thomas Mann returns from excursions into allegory and once more writes directly about a literary artist. But the directness is not that of ''Tonio Kröger''. There he was expressing lyrically his immediate experience, formulating and coming to terms with what he had gone through..."T. J. Reed, ''Thomas Mann: The Uses of Tradition'' (2nd ed.; Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 144. Thus the importance of the work lies, chiefly, in its autobiographical character, as well as in its contribution, through the description of an ''amitié particulière'', to the ''theory of love''. The novel was made into a film in 1964, directed by

Rolf Thiele Rolf Thiele (7 March 1918 – 9 October 1994) was a German film director, film producer, producer and screenwriter. He directed 42 films between 1951 and 1977. He was born in Ústí nad Labem, Prödlitz, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. ...

English translations

* H. T. Lowe-Porter (1936) *

David Luke David Luke (1921–2005) was a scholar of German literature at Christ Church, Oxford. He was renowned for his translations of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Thomas Mann, Heinrich von Kleist, Eduard Mörike, Adalbert Stifter and the Brothers Grimm ...

(1988) * Joachim Neugroschel (1998) * Jefferson S. Chase (1999)

References

* Erich Heller, ''The Ironic German: A Study of Thomas Mann'' (London, Secker & Warburg, 1958), pp. 68ff. (on the genesis of the work), 286 (on the date of publication). * Frank Donald Hirschbach, ''The Arrow and the Lyre: A Study of the Role of Love in the Works of Thomas Mann'' (The Hague, M. Nijhoff, 1955), '' passim'' (but especially the section "The Loves of Two Artists: ''Tonio Kröger'' and ''Death in Venice''", ''

op. cit. ''Op. cit.'' is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase ' or ''opere citato'', meaning "the work cited" or ''in the cited work'', respectively. Overview The abbreviation is used in an endnote or footnote to refer the reader to a cited work, standing ...

'', pp. 14ff.). * Steven Millhauser, "''Some Thoughts on'' Tonio Kröger", ''Antaeus'', No. 73/74 (Spring 1994), pp. 199–223. * Lee Slochower, "The Name of Tadzio in ''Der Tod in Venedig''", ''German Quarterly'', vol. 35, No. 1 (January 1962). * Alfred D. White, "''Tonio Kröger'': Anthropology and Creativity", ''Oxford German Studies'', vol. 34, No. 2 (September 2005), pp. 217–223.

Notes

External links