The central idea of this article is to point at the fundamental role of some aspects of the romantic intellectual tradition for the understanding of the relation between the artist and society critically exposed by Thomas Mann in his novel Doktor Faustus. In this perspective, it is considered that an exacerbation deforming the romantic tradition is - in the ways this is suggested in the novel and in the trajectory of the protagonist, the musician Adrian Leverkühn - a common point between Mann's evaluation of the social role of the artist, the hermetic character of modern aesthetics and of an existential and artistic decadence of the novel's protagonist, a decisive aspect for the understanding of the problematic relation between art and society here presented. The structure of the article proposes the understanding of the relevance of this romantic influence in modern art from the viewpoint of three different and complementary angles, i.e. the aesthetic and political considerations of the intellectual Thomas Mann; the relations between romanticism and the dissolution of the tonal system in modern music and, finally, the sterile and mute intellectualism of Leverkühn's art. The idea of this division is hence the contemplation of two fundamental elements that structure the novel by passing through the socio-political dimension of critical reflection (self-analysis of the author) and the aesthetical dimension (the transformations within the tonal system of erudite music) and, from this perspective, the article seeks to elucidate the critical proposal of a literary elaboration of such questions.
Romanticism; art; music; society; politics; criticism