PARTISAN REVIEW
seems to have any influence on the unfolding of his tragic fate. There
remains the conclusion that aesthetic values are intrinsically incompatible
with moral or social values, that art is intrinsically hostile to society; but
this conclusion-derived from Mr. Mann's interpretation of Nietzsche
rather than from Nietzsche's theories-is not substantiated by anything
else in the book. To be sure, Leverkiihn goes to his doom as does Ger–
many; but these two elements only meet symbolically through the pact
of the devil or the "demonic" theory. Otherwise, Leverkiihn is entirely
isolated from his social environment-a strange, synthetic character
rather than a significant symbol. Thus any search for a conclusive
analogy between his story and the recent history of Germany is quite un–
rewarding. The values of the book do not lie on the level on which it
restates this "Faustian" solution for the problem of the artist and
society, but rather on the level where it fails to give any conclusive
interpretation.
Doctor Faustus
is a melancholy, tragic tale-in the medieval tradi–
tion, quite unlike Goethe's poem. In this version of the legend, no
supernatural intervention, no anthropodicee of ceaseless striving cheat
the devil out of his due. The finale is unrelieved by any prospect or
hope of salvation. Insanity, death, and destruction are its only
leitmotifs.
Germany is totally defeated and destroyed. The narrator is "an old
man, well-nigh broken by the horrors of the times." An actress has com–
mitted suicide; a well-known violinist has been shot to death by his
former mistress, the wife of an art historian; a young child has suc–
cumbed to cerebro-spinal meningitis; the hero of the book has gone in–
sane. Even the artistic achievement flowering on this soil of a doomed
society and bought at the price of one's own life is a
fleur du mal.
"This dark tone-poem (Leverkiihn's last oratorio on the "Lamenta–
tions of Dr. Faustus") permits up to the very end no consolation, ap–
peasement, transfiguration"; it is a counterpart and negation of Beetho–
ven's Ninth. Thus even the creative effort itself ends on a note of despair
and negation. Not even the work of art is left as a symbol of salvation
for the doomed individual, as a meaningful protest against or liberation
from a doomed society.
Viewed against the background of a life's work singularly dedicated
to the illumination (and possibly solution) of the problem of the artist
in our times, this melancholy and pessimistic conclusion commands res–
pect and admiration. It is almost tantamount to an admission of per–
sonal failure on the part of the author. The problem of art in bourgeois
society turns out to be ultimately insoluble. All positive theories (per–
haps even the "Faustian" myth), all creative efforts ultimately appear as
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