Artificial I's : : The Self as Artwork in Ovid, Kierkegaard, and Thomas Mann / / Eric Downing.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Literary and Cultural Studies - 1990 - 1999
• VerfasserIn: Downing, Eric,
• Place / Publishing House: Tübingen : : Max Niemeyer Verlag, , [2013]; ©1993
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Reprint 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Studien zur deutschen Literatur , 127
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (244 p.)

This study explores three works in which the protagonist undertakes to fashion a literary artwork out of himself: Ovid's »Ars Amatoria«, Kierkegaard's »Diary of the Seducer«, and Thomas Mann's »Felix Krull«. For each work, particular attention is paid to the self-conscious interplay between the author's project of book-making and the character's project of self-making, as well as to the effect of changing notions of self-identity on the protagonist's attempt at life as literature. For »Felix Krull«, this includes a sustained analysis of Mann's incorporation and problematization of various Nietzschean models of aesthestics, reality, and self-identity. In Ovid and Kierkegaard, this study also considers a related project, the attempt to fashion a literary artwork out of another, namely out of a woman.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: Ovid and the Ars Amatoria -- Chapter 2: Kierkegaard and the »Diary of the Seducer« -- Chapter 3: Thomas Mann and the early Felix Krull -- Chapter 4: Thomas Mann and the late Felix Krull -- Conclusion -- Bibliography