歌德之后,唯美主义者托马斯·曼是以德国小说走向世界的第一人,常被看作20世纪上半叶最重要的德语作家。人道主义是其美学思考的基本底色,人性是他评价社会和文化现象的尺度,也是人性遭到威胁或践踏时的理想。叔本华、瓦格纳和尼采是他景仰的三颗星辰,是其思想和艺术的基石,他的不少关键思考均与三者有关。“反讽”无疑是其作品的重要特色,反讽话语是其典型写法,他也时常论说反讽。曼氏反讽可被理解为一种反思和回应现代性的交往形式,以及新的社会状况下的写作立场。他赞同席勒对艺术与游戏之亲缘关系的阐释,即严肃地玩弄形式游戏,用游戏形式呈现艺术的高妙和精深之处。同时,他也称颂20世纪伟大作品的艺术试验,即淡化故事情节、颇多思辨的“理智小说”。 After Goethe, the aestheticist Thomas Mann was the first to go to the world with a German novel and was often seen as the most important German writer in the first half of the 20th century. Humanism is the basic background of its aesthetic thinking. Human nature is a measure of social and cultural phenomena and an ideal of human nature being threatened or trampled upon. Schopenhauer, Wagner, and Nietzsche are the three stars he admires, the cornerstone of his thinking and art, and many of his key reflections are all about the three. “Irony ” is undoubtedly an important feature of his work, ironic discourse is its typical wording, he often talk about irony. Man’s irony can be understood as a form of communication that reflects and responds to modernity, as well as a writing position under new social conditions. He agreed with Schiller’s interpretation of the kinship between the arts and the game by playing a serious form game and using the game to present the art’s wonder and depth. At the same time, he also praised the artistic experiment of the great works of the 20th century, that is, to dilute the storyline, many speculative “intellectual novel ”.