Double optics
Friedrich Nietzsche used the concept of double optics or alternating optics to describe the quality of Richard Wagner's operas of addressing both the general public and particularly well-educated connoisseurs. The term was taken up again by Eberhard Lämmert and transferred to the interpretation of poetic texts in order to describe Thomas Mann's narrative art. Here, too, a double structure is meant: on the one hand, a text of this type is easy to understand and entertaining, and on the other hand, it is enriched with elements that invite literarily sophisticated interpretations for which deeper expertise is essential.
Thomas Mann himself described - still without using this term - in the 1911 novella Death in Venice the talent of the fictional writer Gustav von Aschenbach, "to win the faith of the broad public and the admiring, demanding participation of the picky at the same time," which means that The concept was already in place and invites you to apply it to the novella itself, which in turn is one of the most successful German novels and is valued for its wealth of eloquence and allusions.
Joachim Rickes showed that Daniel Kehlmann's novels also use double optics.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eberhard Lämmert: Double optics. About the storytelling of the early Thomas Mann. In: Karl Rüdinger (Ed.): Literature Language Society. Munich 1970, pp. 50-72.
- ↑ Thomas Mann: Death in Venice. Stories. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1980, p. 193.
- ↑ Joachim Rickes: The metamorphoses of the 'devil' with Daniel Kehlmann - "Tell Karl Ludwig to me" . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8260-4339-0 , p. 49f.