Neo-Renaissance in the works of T. Mann

Abstract

One of the most striking modernization projects in the literature of European decadence was Neo-Renaissance, which was seen as an opportunity for a profound “reassessment of values” and a tool for overcoming the cultural crisis of modernity. Similar to the Weimar classical era, the Neo-Renaissance project modernized modernity through an appeal to the forms of old culture. Along with this cultural epoch in their theories, the main ideologists of the Neo-Renaissance were F. Nietzsche, H. Ibsen, and in Russia — D. Merezhkovsky, all of whom saw it as an unfulfilled attempt at a great cultural synthesis, the embodiment of the ancient utopia of the “Third Kingdom”. In his search for a synthetic culture, T. Mann also turns to the theme of the Renaissance. His first attempt at developing this topic was his early novel Gladius Dei (1901), in which the neo-Renaissance aestheticism of modern culture is criticized from the standpoint of Christian spiritualism. In his drama Fiorenza (1904) T. Mann continues his artistic exploration of Renaissance themes in light of the question of the essence of art. The question of the authenticity of art is examined using the essay “On the Erotic in Michelangelo” (1950) as an example.