Humanistic Illumination and Exhausted Irony in Thomas Mann's Novel The Magic Mountain

The article first outlines the main trends in recent studies to Thomas Mann's << Zauberberg >> (<< The Magic Mountain >>). Since the dominance of the Schopenhauer reception has been criticized unanimously, two leading hypotheses have emerged: On the one hand, emphasis has been placed on a new humanism which the protagonist has developed pursuing his well-reflected fascination with death and as a result of his autodidactic biochemical studies. On the other hand, it has been claimed that ironic ambiguity between the narrated positions (Settembrini, Naphta, Mme. Chauchat, Peeperkorn) leads to narrative relativism. Reviewing this dichotomy on the basis of the novel's self-referentiality will reveal that ironical reservations and parodistic superiority - particularly in the last chapter - fail and dissolve against the background of the catastrophe of World War I. At the same time, the non-ironic concept of a new humanism loses most of its validity. This dilemma is the unsolved problem of the novel.