Henry II: King of France 1547-1559, by Frederick J. BaumgartnerHenry II: King of France 1547-1559, by Frederick J. Baumgartner. Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1988. xiv, 358 pp. $37.50 U.S.
Thomas Pfau (Duke University) explores the radical transformation of the Bildungsroman - and of the image ( Bild ) as its narrative, speculative fuel - in ‘The Magic Mountain’. Contrasting Mann's narrative process with that of Goethe and Hegel, and drawing on the sociological writings of Georg Simmel and Arnold Gehlen, Pfau reads Mann's novel as decisively breaking with Romanticism's self-generating, organicist, and teleological conception of cultural narrative.
