Christa T. – Tonio K. in Disguise? - Autobiography and Intertextuality in Thomas Mann’s Tonio Kröger and Christa Wolf’s Nachdenken über Christa T.

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2015-06-25
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Abstract
My thesis examines the intertextual relationship between Thomas Mann’s Tonio Kröger (TK) and Christa Wolf’s Nachdenken über Christa T. (NT). TK is a product of early 20th century German philosophy and literary trends with a strong influence of Nietzsche’s aesthetics and ideas. NT, a novel with substantial political inferences, is a modernist work about a non-conformist and disillusioned protagonist in the GDR. The scope of my thesis covers the common themes, similarities and intertextuality linking the two works even though they are vastly different in style and content. The feelings of alienation of the protagonists with their internal struggles as artists and the autobiographical writing styles are the shared features of these two texts. These commonalities provide a framework which leads to the examination of the intertextual connection between NT and TK and the different interpretations of NT in the context of theories of intertextuality.
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Literature--Germanic
Citation
Wong, G. (2015). Christa T. – Tonio K. in Disguise? - Autobiography and Intertextuality in Thomas Mann’s Tonio Kröger and Christa Wolf’s Nachdenken über Christa T. (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25324