Intellectual and social novel The term "intellectual novel" was proposed by T. Mann in 1924, the year of the publication of his novel "The Magic Mountain" ("Der Zauberberg"). In the article "On Spengler's Teachings", the writer noted that the desire to comprehend the era, associated with "historical and world

The intellectual novel in German literature

Topic 3. Literature of Germany at the turn of the century, I half of the 20th century.

1. Sociocultural situation and historical landmarks that determined the nature of the development of German culture. The formation of the world system of monopoly capitalism in Germany was belated, but by the beginning of the 20th century. the transition has ended. Germany has surpassed England in economics. With the reign of Wilhelm P from 1888 ᴦ. an aggressive policy was established under the slogan - ʼʼto achieve a place in the sun for Germanyʼʼ. It was also the slogan that united the empire. Ideological foundations - the teachings of German philosophers (Nietzsche, Spengler, Schopenhauer)

In the popular social-democratic movement, the gravitation towards the gradual peaceful resolution of conflicts, as opposed to the revolutionary theory of Marxism. For a short time, apparent calm was established, but in literature - a premonition of the apocalypse. The impact of the revolution 1905.ᴦ. led to the strengthening of the social democratic ideology and the growth of the labor movement of 1911ᴦ. - a clash of interests between France and Germany in North America, almost leading to war.

The Balkan Crisis and the First World War of 1914. ᴦ., the revolution of 1917 in Russia led to mass strikes and the November People's Revolution in Germany (1918). The revolutionary situation was finally crushed in 1923ᴦ. The post-war revolutionary upsurge was replaced by ... the stabilization of capitalism.

1925.ᴦ. - The Weimar bourgeois republic, Germany is actively involved in the process of Americanization of Europe. After the need and disasters of the war, the need for entertainment was natural (which caused the development of the corresponding industry, the cultural market, the emergence of mass culture). The general characteristic of the period is the ʼʼgolden twentiesʼʼ.

The 1930s that followed were called ʼʼblackʼʼ. 1929 America's overproduction crisis paralyzed the world economy. In Germany, there is an economic and political crisis - a change of governments that do not control the situation. Unemployment is massive. The National Socialist Party is gaining strength. The confrontation between the forces of the developed KKE (Communist Party of Germany) and the NSP (National Socialist Party) ended in victory for the latter. 1933 - Hitler came to power.
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The militarization of the economy has become the main means of social stability. At the same time cultural life was politicized. The era of literary ʼʼismsʼʼ is over. The era of reaction began and the struggle against objectionable. Since this period, German literature has been developing in anti-fascist emigration. The Second World War.

2. Literature at the turn of the century and the 1st half of the 20th was marked by the crisis of bourgeois culture, which was expressed by F. Nietzsche.

In the 1890s, there was a move away from naturalism. 1894 - Hauptmann's naturalistic drama ʼʼThe Weaversʼʼ. A feature of German naturalism is ʼʼConsistent naturalismʼʼ, which required a more accurate reflection of objects that changed with lighting and position. ʼʼSecond styleʼʼ, developed by Schlaf, involves dividing reality into many instantaneous perceptions. The ʼʼphotographic image of the eraʼʼ could not reveal the invisible signs of the impending new AGE. In addition, a protest against the concept of a shelf dependence of a person on the environment has become a sign of the new time. Naturalism has declined, but its techniques have survived in critical realism

Impressionism not received distribution in Germany. German writers were hardly attracted by the analysis of infinitely changing states. Infrequently engaged in a neo-romantic study of special psychological states. German neo-romanticism included features of symbolism, but there was almost no mystical symbolism. The romantic duality of the conflict between the eternal and the mundane, the explainable and the mysterious was usually emphasized.

The predominant trend in the first half of the 20th century. was expressionism. Leading genre – ʼʼscream dramaʼʼ

Along with ʼʼ-ismsʼʼ at the turn of the century to the end of the 20s. a layer of proletarian literature was actively taking shape. Later (in the 1930s), socialist prose developed in emigration (A. Zegers and Becher's poetry).

The popular genre at that time was the novel. In addition to the intellectual novel, there were historical and social novels in German literature, which developed a technique close to the intellectual novel, and also continued the traditions of German satire.

Heinrich Mann(1871 - 1950) worked in the genre of a socially accusatory novel (influenced by French literature). The main period of creativity is 1900-1910. The novel ʼʼThe Loyal Subjectʼʼ (1914) brought fame to the writer. According to the author himself, ʼʼThe novel depicts the previous stage of that tal, which then reached powerʼʼ. The hero is the embodiment of loyalty, the essence of the phenomenon, embodied in a living character.

The novel is a biography of a hero who has worshiped authority since childhood: a father, a teacher, a policeman. The author uses biographical details to enhance the nature of the hero; He is a slave and a despot at the same time. At the root of his psychology lies cringing and a thirst for power to humiliate the weak. The story of the hero fixes his constantly changing social position (second style!). The mechanistic nature of actions, gestures, words of the hero - convey the automatism, the mechanistic nature of society.

The author creates an image according to the laws of caricature, deliberately shifting the proportions, sharpening and exaggerating the characteristics of the characters. The heroes of G. Mann are characterized by the mobility of masks = caricature. All of the above in the aggregate is G. Mann's ʼʼgeometrical cmʼʼ as one of the variants of conventionality: the author balances on the verge of authenticity and implausibility.

Lion Feuchtwanger(1884 - 1954) - a philosopher who was interested in the East. He became famous for his historical and social novels. In his work, the historical novel, more than the social novel, depended on the technique of the intellectual novel. Common features

* Transferring modern problems that concern the writer to the situation of the distant past, modeling them in a historical plot - modernizing history (historically reliable plot, facts, description of life, national flavor, to which modern problems are introduced to the relationship of the characters).

* Historically costumed modernity, a novel of streaks and allegories, where modern events and faces of ʼʼFalse Neroʼʼ - L. Feuchtwanger, ʼʼActs of Mr. Julius Caesarʼʼ B Brecht are depicted in a conditional historical shell.

The term was proposed in 1924 by T Mann ʼʼThe intellectual novelʼʼ became a realistic genre that embodied one of the features of realism in the 20th century. - an acute need for the interpretation of life, its comprehension and interpretation. In world literature, they worked in the genre of the intellectual novel; EL Bulgakov (Russia), K. Capek (Czech Republic), W. Faulkner and T. Wolfe (America), but T. Mann stood at the origins.

A characteristic phenomenon of time was the modification of the historical novel: the past becomes a springboard for clarifying the social and political mechanisms of the present.

A common principle of construction is layering, the presence in a single artistic whole of layers of reality that are far from each other.

In the first half of the 20th century a new understanding of myth emerged. He acquired historical features, ᴛ.ᴇ. was perceived as a product of distant antiquity, illuminating the recurring patterns in the life of mankind. The appeal to the myth pushed the temporal boundaries of the work. At the same time, it provided an opportunity for artistic play, countless analogies and parallels, unexpected correspondences that explain modernity.

The German ʼʼintellectual novelʼʼ was philosophical, firstly, because there was a tradition of philosophizing in artistic creation, and secondly, because it strove for systemicity. The cosmic concepts of the German novelists did not claim to be a scientific interpretation of the world order. According to the desires of its creators, the "intellectual novel" was to be perceived not as a philosophy, but as an art.

The laws of construction of the ʼʼ Intellectual novelʼʼ.

* The presence of several non-merging layers of reality (German I.R.) is philosophical construction - mandatory the presence of different levels of life correlated with each other, evaluated and measured by each other. Artistic tension - in conjugation of these layers into a single whole.

* Special interpretation of time in the 20th century (free breaks in action, movement into the past and future, arbitrary acceleration and deceleration of time) also influenced the intellectual novel. Here time is not only discrete, but also torn into qualitatively different pieces. Only in German literature is there such a tense relationship between the time of history and the time of the individual. Different hypostases of time are often separated into different spaces. The internal tension in the German philosophical novel is born in many respects by the effort ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ needs to keep in integrity, to match the really disintegrated time.

* Special psychologism: ʼʼan intellectual novelʼʼ is characterized by an enlarged image of a person. The author's interest is not focused on clarifying the hidden inner life of the hero (following L.N. Tolstoy and F.M. Dostoevsky), but in showing him as a representative of the human race. The image becomes less developed psychologically, but more voluminous. The spiritual life of the characters received a powerful external regulator, it is not so much the environment as the events of world history, the general state of the world (T Mann (ʼʼDoctor Faustusʼʼ): ʼʼ...not character, but the worldʼʼ).

The German ʼʼintellectual novelʼʼ continues the traditions of the educational novel of the 18th century, only education is usually understood not only as moral perfection, since the character of the characters is stable, the appearance does not change significantly. Education - in liberation from the accidental and superfluous, in connection with this, the main thing is not the internal conflict (reconciliation of the aspirations of self-improvement and personal well-being), but the conflict of knowing the laws of the universe, with which one can be in harmony or in opposition. Without these laws, the landmark is lost, in connection with this, the main task of the genre is not the knowledge of the laws of the universe, but their overcoming. Blind adherence to the laws begins to be perceived as a convenience and as a betrayal in relation to the spirit and to man.

Thomas Mann(1873 -1955) The Mann brothers were born in the family of a wealthy grain merchant. Even after the death of their father, the family was quite well off. For this reason, the transformation from a burgher to a bourgeois took place before the eyes of the writer.

Wilhelm II talked about the great changes to which he led Germany, T. Mann saw her decline.

The Decline of One Family is the subtitle of the first novel ʼʼBudennbrooksʼʼ(1901). The peculiarity of the genre is a family chronicle (traditions of the novel-river!) with epic elements (historical-analytical approach). The novel absorbed the experience of 19th century realism. and partly the technique of impressionistic writing. Myself T.Mann considered himself a continuation of the naturalistic trend. In the center of the novel is the fate of three generations of Buddenbrooks. The older generation is still in harmony with itself and the outside world. Inherited moral and commercial principles bring the second generation into conflict with life. Toni Buddenbrook does not marry Morten for commercial reasons, but remains unhappy, her brother Christian prefers independence, turns into a decadent. Thomas vigorously maintains an appearance of bourgeois well-being, but collapses, because the external form that you care about no longer corresponds to either condition or content.

T. Mann is already here opening up new possibilities for prose, intellectualizing it. Social typification appears (the detail acquires a symbolic meaning, their diversity opens up the possibility of broad generalization), the features of an educational ʼʼintellectual novelʼʼ (the characters hardly change), but there is still an internal conflict of reconciliation and time is not discrete.

The writer acutely felt the problematic nature of his place in society as an artist, hence one of the main themes of his work: the position of the artist in bourgeois society, his alienation from ʼʼʼʼʼʼ (like everything else) social life. (ʼʼTonio Kroegerʼʼ, ʼʼDeath in Veniceʼʼ).

After the First World War, T. Mann did not take the position of an outside observer for a long time. In 1918 (the year of the revolution!) he composes idylls in prose and verse. But, having rethought the historical significance of the revolution, he ends in 1924 ᴦ. educational romance ʼʼMagic Mountainʼʼ(4 books). In the 1920s. T. Mann becomes one of those writers who, under the influence of the war, post-war years, under the influence of the emerging German fascism, felt it was their duty ʼʼnot to hide your head in the sand in the face of reality, but to fight on the side of those who want to give the earth a human meaningʼʼ. In 1939.v. - Nobel Prize, 1936..c. - emigration to Switzerland, then to the USA, where he is actively engaged in anti-fascist propaganda. The period is marked by work on the tetralogy ʼʼJoseph and his brothersʼʼ(1933-1942) - a novel-myth, where the hero is engaged in conscious state activity.

intellectual novel ʼʼDoctor Faustusʼʼ(1947) - the pinnacle of the intellectual novel genre. The author himself said the following about this book: ʼʼI secretly treated Faustus as my spiritual testament, the publication of which no longer plays a role and with which the publisher and executor can do as they pleaseʼʼ.

ʼʼDoctor Faustusʼʼ is a novel about the tragic fate of a composer who agreed to collude with the devil not for the sake of knowledge, but for the sake of unlimited possibilities in musical creativity. Retribution - death and the inability to love (the influence of Freudianism!).. To facilitate understanding of the novel by T. Mann E 19.49T. creates ʼʼHistory of Doctor Faustusʼʼ excerpts from which may help to better understand the intent of the novel.

ʼʼIf my previous works acquired a monumental character, then it turned out beyond expectation, without intentionʼʼ

ʼʼMy book is basically a book about the German soulʼʼ.

ʼʼThe main gain - with the introduction of the figure of the narrator, the opportunity to sustain the narration in a double time frame, polyphonically weaving events that shock the writer at the very moment of work, into those events that he writes about.

Here it is difficult to distinguish the transition of the tangible-real into the illusory perspective of the drawing. This editing technique is part of the very idea of ​​the bookʼʼ.

ʼʼIf you are writing a novel about an artist, there is nothing more vulgar than just praising art, genius, work. What was needed here was reality, concreteness. I had to study musicʼʼ.

ʼʼThe most difficult of the tasks is a convincingly reliable, illusory-realistic description of satanic-religious, demonic-pious, but at the same time something very strict and downright criminal mockery of art: the rejection of beats, even of an organized sequence of sounds...ʼʼ

ʼʼI took with me a volume of schwanks of the 16th century - after all, my story always left in this era with one bek, so that in other places an appropriate color in the languageʼʼ was required.

ʼʼThe main motive of my novel is the proximity of infertility, the organic doom of the ʼʼ era, predisposing to a deal with the devil.

ʼʼI was bewitched by the idea of ​​the work, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ, being from beginning to end a confessionʼʼ and self-sacrifice, knows no mercy for pity and, pretending to be art, simultaneously goes beyond art and is a true realityʼʼ.

ʼʼWas there a prototype of Adrian? That was the difficulty, to invent the figure of a musician capable of taking a plausible place among real figures. He. - a collective image of a person who carries all the pain of the era.

I was captivated by his coldness, remoteness from life, his lack of a soul. and trivialize the spiritual plane with its symbolism and ambiguityʼʼ.

ʼʼIt took 8 days for the epilogue. The last lines of the Doctor are Zeitblom's penetrating prayer. for a friend and the Fatherland, which I have heard for a long time. I was mentally transported through 3 years 8 months, lived by me under the stress of this book. On that May morning, when in the midst of the war, I took up the pen ʼʼ.

If the previous novels were educational, then in ʼʼDoctor Faustusʼʼ they will bring up no one. This is really a novel of the end, in which various themes are brought to the limit: the hero perishes, Germany perishes. The dangerous limit to which art has come, and the last line to which humanity has approached are shown.

Topic 4. English literature at the turn of the century and the first half of the 20th century.

1. Social situation and Philosophical foundations of literature at the turn of the century. The social situation of the period - under the influence of the crisis of Victorianism (during the reign of Queen Victorine 1837-1901), it is criticized as a system of spiritual and aesthetic values. The great compromise between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie did not bring harmony. In the period 1870-1890, Great Britain enters the flock of ʼʼ imperialism, which leads to an intensification of political and social activity, as well as the polarization of social forces, and the rise of the labor movement. The activation of reformist ideas led to the emergence of a socialist attitude (Fabian society). England participates in colonial wars, which were the result of the loss of world prestige.

Participation in the First World War. 1916 Irish uprising that escalated into civil war. As a consequence of the ‣‣‣ event, the emergence of literature of the ʼʼlost generationʼʼ .

The literatures in the turn of the century era were as follows:

The popularity of the ideas of H. Spencer (social Darwinism), which differ from Victorian norms and provided a person with society, (Biological understanding of social laws, naturalistic source of art - in the needs of the psyche, understanding of art as part of the game, which puts a person on a par with the animal).

* The theory of D. Fraser (Head of the Department of Social Anthropology). In his work "Golden Bough" the evolution of human consciousness from the tragic to the religious and scientific is substantiated. The theory paid attention to the peculiarities of primitive consciousness. She had a greater influence on the development of modernist literature.

* The concept of art and beauty by John Ruskin, which served as the basis of aestheticism. In his ʼʼLectures on Artʼʼ (1870) he said that beauty is an objective property

* The teachings of Z. Freud and other philosophers of the new time

Intellectual novel in German literature - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Intellectual novel in German literature" 2017, 2018.

The "intellectual novel" brought together various writers and different trends in the world literature of the twentieth century: T. Mann and G. Hesse, R. Musil and G. Broch, M. Bulgakov and K. Czapek, W. Faulkner and T. Zulf and many others . But the main unifying feature of the "intellectual novel" is the heightened need of twentieth-century literature to interpret life, to blur the lines between philosophy and art.

T. Mann is rightfully considered the creator of the "intellectual novel". In 1924, the year of the publication of The Magic Mountain, he wrote in the article “On Spengler’s Teachings”: “The historical and world turning point of 1914-1923 with extraordinary force aggravated in the minds of contemporaries the need to comprehend the era, which was refracted in artistic creativity. This process erases the boundaries between science and art, pours living, pulsating blood into an abstract thought, spiritualizes the plastic image and creates the type of book that can be called an "intellectual novel." To "intellectual novels" T. Mann attributed the works of F. Nietzsche.

The "intellectual novel" is characterized by a special understanding and functional use of myth. The myth acquired historical features, was perceived as a product of prehistoric times, highlighting the repetitive patterns in the common life of mankind. The appeal to myth in the novels of T. Mann, G. Hesse widely expanded the time frame of the work, made it possible for countless analogies and parallels that throw light on modernity and explain it.

But despite the general trend - a heightened need for the interpretation of life, blurring the lines between philosophy and art, the "intellectual novel" is a heterogeneous phenomenon. The variety of forms of the "intellectual novel" is revealed on the example of the works of T. Mann, G. Hesse and R. Musil.

The German "intellectual novel" is characterized by a well-thought-out concept of the cosmic device. T. Mann wrote: "The pleasure that can be found in the metaphysical system, the pleasure that the spiritual organization of the world delivers in a logically closed, harmonious, self-sufficient logical construction, is always primarily of an aesthetic nature." Such a worldview is due to the influence of Neoplatonic philosophy, in particular, the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who argued that reality, i.e. the world of historical time is only a reflection of the essence of ideas. Schopenhauer called reality "Maya", using the term of Buddhist philosophy, i.e. ghost, mirage. The essence of the world is in distilled spirituality. Hence the Schopenhauerian dual world: the world of the valley (the world of shadows) and the world of the mountain (the world of truth).

The basic laws of the construction of the German "intellectual novel" are based on the use of Schopenhauer's dual world. In "Magic Mountain", in "Steppenwolf", in "The Glass Bead Game". Reality is multi-layered: it is the world of the valley - the world of historical time and the world of the mountain - the world of true essence. Such a construction implied the restriction of the narrative from everyday, socio-historical realities, which led to another feature of the German "intellectual novel" - its hermeticity.

The tightness of the “intellectual novel” by T. Mann and G. Hesse gives rise to a special relationship between historical time and personal time, distilled from socio-historical storms. This authentic time exists in the rarefied mountain air of the Berghof sanatorium ("Magic Mountain"), in the "Magic Theater" ("Steppenwolf"), in the harsh isolation of Castalia ("The Glass Bead Game").

G. Hesse wrote about historical time: waste of life."

The “intellectual novel” by R. Musil “A Man without Qualities” differs from the hermetic form of the novels by T. Mann and G. Hesse. In the work of the Austrian writer there is the accuracy of historical characteristics and specific signs of real time. Considering the modern novel as a "subjective formula of life", Musil uses the historical panorama of events as a backdrop against which the battles of consciousness are played out. "A Man Without Qualities" is a fusion of objective and subjective narrative elements. In contrast to the complete closed concept of the universe in the novels of T. Mann and G. Hesse, R. Musil's novel is conditioned by the concept of infinite modification and relativity of concepts.

The realism of the 20th century is directly related to the realism of the previous century. And how did this artistic method develop in the middle of the 19th century, having received the rightful name of “classical realism” and having experienced various modifications in the literary work of the last third of the 19th century, was influenced by such unrealistic trends as naturalism, aestheticism, impressionism.

The realism of the 20th century takes shape in its definite history and has a destiny. If we cover the 20th century collectively, then realistic creativity manifested itself in diversity of nature, multi-composition in the first half of the 20th century. At this time, it is obvious that realism is changing under the influence of modernism and mass literature. He connects with these artistic phenomena as with revolutionary socialist literature. In the second half there is a dissolution of realism, which has lost its clear aesthetic principles and poetics of creativity in modernism and postmodernism.

The realism of the 20th century continues the traditions of classical realism at different levels - from aesthetic principles to the techniques of poetics, the traditions of which were inherent in the realism of the 20th century. The realism of the last century acquires new properties that distinguish it from this type of creativity of the previous time.

The realism of the 20th century is characterized by an appeal to the social phenomena of reality and the social motivation of the human character, the psychology of the individual, and the fate of art. As obvious is the appeal to the social topical problems of the era, which are not separated from the problems of society and politics.

Realistic art of the 20th century, like the classical realism of Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, is distinguished by a high degree of generalization and typification of phenomena. Realistic art tries to show the characteristic and regular in their causality and determinism. Therefore, realism is characterized by a different creative embodiment of the principle of depicting a typical character in typical circumstances, in the realism of the 20th century, which is keenly interested in a separate human personality. Character as a living person - and in this character the universal and typical has an individual refraction, or is combined with the individual properties of the personality. Along with these features of classical realism, new features are also obvious.

First of all, these are the features that manifested themselves in the realistic at the end of the 19th century. Literary creativity in this era takes on the character of philosophical and intellectual, when philosophical ideas underlay the modeling of artistic reality. At the same time, the manifestation of this philosophical principle is inseparable from the various properties of the intellectual. From the author's attitude to the intellectually active perception of the work in the process of reading, then the emotional perception. An intellectual novel, an intellectual drama, takes shape in its specific properties. A classic example of an intellectual realistic novel is provided by Thomas Mann (The Magic Mountain, The Confession of the Adventurer Felix Krul). This is also palpable in the dramaturgy of Bertolt Brecht.

The second feature of realism in the 20th century is the strengthening and deepening of the dramatic, more tragic beginning. Obviously, this is in the work of F.S. Fitzgerald (“Tender is the Night”, “The Great Gatsby”).

As you know, the art of the 20th century lives by its special interest not just in a person, but in his inner world.

The term "intellectual novel" was first proposed by Thomas Mann. In 1924, in the year of the publication of the novel The Magic Mountain, the writer noted in the article “On Spengler’s Teachings” that the “historical and world turning point” of 1914-1923. with extraordinary force, he sharpened the need to comprehend the era in the minds of contemporaries, and this was refracted in a certain way in artistic creativity. To "intellectual novels" T. Mann also included the works of Fr. Nietzsche. It was the "intellectual novel" that became the genre that for the first time realized one of the characteristic new features of realism of the 20th century - an acute need for the interpretation of life, its comprehension, interpretation, which exceeded the need for "telling", the embodiment of life in artistic images. In world literature, he is represented not only by the Germans - T. Mann, G. Hesse, A. Döblin, but also by the Austrians R. Musil and G. Broch, the Russian M. Bulgakov, the Czech K. Chapek, the Americans W. Faulkner and T. Wolf , and many others. But T. Mann stood at its origins.

Layering, multi-composition, the presence in a single artistic whole of layers of reality that are far from each other has become one of the most common principles in the construction of novels of the 20th century. Novelists divide reality. They divide it into life in the valley and on the Magic Mountain (T. Mann), the sea of ​​life and the strict solitude of the Republic of Castalia (G. Hesse). They single out biological life, instinctive life and the life of the spirit (German "intellectual novel"). They create the province of Yoknapatofu (Faulkner), which becomes the second universe, representing modernity.

First half of the 20th century put forward a special understanding and functional use of myth. Myth has ceased to be, as is usual for the literature of the past, a conditional attire of the present. Like many other things, under the pen of writers of the XX century. the myth acquired historical features, was perceived in its independence and separateness - as a product of distant antiquity, illuminating repeating patterns in the common life of mankind. The appeal to myth widened the temporal boundaries of the work. But besides this, the myth that filled the entire space of the work (“Joseph and his brothers” by T. Mann) or appeared in separate reminders, and sometimes only in the title (“Job” by the Austrian I. Roth), made it possible for endless artistic play, countless analogies and parallels, unexpected "encounters", correspondences that throw light on modernity and explain it.

The German "intellectual novel" could be called philosophical, meaning its obvious connection with the traditional for German literature, starting with its classics, philosophizing in artistic creativity. German literature has always sought to understand the universe. Goethe's Faust was a solid support for this. Having risen to a height not reached by German prose throughout the second half of the 19th century, the "intellectual novel" became a unique phenomenon in world culture precisely because of its originality.

The very type of intellectualism or philosophizing was here of a special kind. In the German "intellectual novel", three of its largest representatives - Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Alfred Döblin - noticeably strive to proceed from a complete, closed concept of the universe, a well-thought-out concept of the cosmic structure, to the laws of which human existence is "adjusted". This does not mean that the German "intellectual novel" hovered in transcendental distances and was not connected with the burning problems of the political situation in Germany and the world. On the contrary, the authors named above gave the most profound interpretation of modernity. Nevertheless, the German "intellectual novel" strove for an all-encompassing system. (Outside of the novel, this intention is evident in Brecht, who always sought to connect the sharpest social analysis with human nature, and in early poetry with the laws of nature.)

However, in fact, time was interpreted in the novel of the twentieth century. much more varied. In the German "intellectual novel" it is discrete not only in the sense of the absence of continuous development: time is also torn apart into qualitatively different "pieces". In no other literature is there such a tense relationship between the time of history, eternity and personal time, the time of human existence.

The image of the inner world of a person has a special character. Psychologism in T. Mann and Hesse differs significantly from psychologism, for example, in Döblin. However, the German "intellectual novel" as a whole is characterized by an enlarged, generalized image of a person. The image of a person has become a condenser and a receptacle for "circumstances" - some of their indicative properties and symptoms. The spiritual life of the characters received a powerful external regulator. It is not so much the environment as the events of world history and the general state of the world.

Most of the German "intellectual novels" continued the developments that took place on German soil in the 18th century. genre of the novel of education. But education was understood according to tradition (“Faust” by Goethe, “Heinrich von Ofterdingen” by Novalis) not only as moral perfection.

Thomas Mann (1875-1955) can be considered the creator of a new type of novel, not because he was ahead of other writers: published in 1924, the novel The Magic Mountain was not only one of the first, but also the most definite example of a new intellectual prose.

The work of Alfred Döblin (1878-1957). What is highly characteristic of Döblin is what is not characteristic of these writers - an interest in the "material" itself, in the material surface of life. It was this interest that made his novel related to many artistic phenomena of the 1920s in various countries. The 1920s saw the first wave of documentary art. Accurately recorded material (in particular, a document) seemed to guarantee the comprehension of reality. In literature, montage has become a common technique, pushing the plot ("fiction"). It was montage that was central to the writing technique of the American Dos Passos, whose novel Manhattan (1925) was translated in Germany in the same year and had a certain influence on Döblin. In Germany, Döblin's work was associated in the late 1920s with the style of "new efficiency".

As in the novels of Erich Kestner (1899-1974) and Hermann Kesten (born in 1900), two of the greatest prose writers of the "new efficiency", in Döblin's main novel "Berlin - Alexanderplatz" (1929) a person is filled to the limit with life. If the actions of people were not of any decisive importance, then, on the contrary, the pressure of reality upon them was of decisive importance.

The best examples of the social and historical novel in many cases developed a technique close to the "intellectual novel".

Among the early victories of realism of the XX century. include the novels of Heinrich Mann, written in the 1900-1910s. Heinrich Mann (1871-1950) continued the age-old tradition of German satire. At the same time, like Weert and Heine, the writer experienced a significant impact of French social thought and literature. It was French literature that helped him master the genre of the socially accusatory novel, which acquired unique features from H. Mann. Later G. Mann discovered Russian literature.

The name of G. Mann became widely known after the publication of the novel "The Land of Jelly Coasts" (1900). But this folklore name is ironic. G. Mann introduces the reader to the world of the German bourgeoisie. In this world, everyone hates each other, although they cannot do without each other, being bound not only by material interests, but also by the nature of domestic relations, views, and the certainty that everything in the world is bought and sold.

A special place belongs to the novels of Hans Fallada (1893-1947). His books were read in the late 1920s by those who had never heard of Döblin, Thomas Mann or Hess. They were bought with meager earnings during the years of the economic crisis. Not distinguished by any philosophical depth or special political insight, they posed one question: how can a small person survive? "Little man, what's next?" - was the name of the novel published in 1932, which was very popular.