Background
Hermann Kurzke was born on February 15, 1943, in Berlin, Germany.
2014
Hermann Kurzke
2014
Hermann Kurzke
Hermann Kurzke
Hermann Kurzke
Munich, Germany
Hermann Kurzke studied German at the University of Munich.
Sanderring 2, 97070 Würzburg, Germany
Hermann Kurzke studied Catholic theology at the University of Würzburg.
Hermann Kurzke was born on February 15, 1943, in Berlin, Germany.
Hermann Kurzke studied German and Catholic theology at the universities of Munich and Würzburg.
German scholar Hermann Kurzke has produced several works dealing with early twentieth-century German novelist Thomas Mann. In his biography Thomas Mann: Das Leben als Kunstwerk, Kurzke attempts to place Mann’s literary ideas in a place central to an understanding of the writer’s life. Mann was known as one of the most important figures in early-twentieth-century literature, in general, his novels address how the exceptional individual deals with the world of family or the world at large. His fiction is notable for its accurate portrayal of modem life, as well as life in the ancient world, and is marked by subtle intellectual analysis and an ironic point of view. He was also a literary critic who, in his essay “Reflections of a Non-political Man,” expressed his belief that an artist must be involved in society.
Until his retirement, he held a professorship for modern German literary history at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz.
In 2011 he headed the Interdisciplinary Working Group on Hymn Book Research (IAK) at Mainz University.
Kurzke published on Thomas Mann, Goethe as well as romanticism (Novalis), hymnology (political song, hymn), cultural religiosity and contemporary literature. In his new edition of Thomas Mann's considerations of apolitical, Kurzke comes to a new reading, according to which he no longer sees the considerations as a conservative or even reactionary pamphlet.
Kurzke’s book fills a gap left among several existing biographies of Thomas Mann that deal primarily with the author’s political leanings and activities. Although Kurzke uses Mann’s literary texts as his primary focus, he does not neglect the factual part of the author’s life. Of Mann’s exile, Kurzke writes that the trauma of that event is reflected in much of Mann’s writings. Kurzke also deals with the subject of Mann’s homosexuality, though he does not make it the center of his study as some other writers have done. He explains that Mann remained conflicted on this subject because of the “paternal order” of German society, thus eventually even marrying and fathering children.
Kurzke, along with some other biographers, has criticized Mann for not attacking Nazism earlier than he did, but he understands why Mann may have hesitated. After all, Kurzke insists, Mann “was stumbling about among tangled roots where we can see the whole cursed wood.”