Thomas Mann and Shakespeare

"In Doktor Faustus, Thomas Mann associated Shakespeare with the Devil and the demonic guilt of Nazism. Bringing together major scholars from diverse disciplines and countries, this is the first ever book-length study to explore the always fascinating if sometimes disturbing connections between Shakespeare and Mann. It establishes startling resonances between the central works of these two authors, pairing, for instance, Der Zauberberg with The Tempest, Der Tod in Venedig with The Merchant of Venice, Tonio Kröger with Othello, as well as Love's Labour's Lost with Doktor Faustus. It shows how the conjunction of Shakespeare and Mann affords new, alternative perspectives on fundamental issues such as modernity, irony, art, desire, authorship and religion. In the process, it demonstrates the scope for new ways of reading in literary studies in general, by renewing European intellectual connections in the wake of postcolonialism, and challenging the increasingly walled-in specialism of literary topics and periodization"--

"The first ever comparative reading of Shakespeare and Thomas Mann in view of key questions in modern culture"--