Theodor W. Adorno e il concetto di seconda natura nel Doktor Faustus di Thomas Mann

Abstract

“Doktor Faustus” of Thomas Mann, as explained by its author, is a novel on German civilization in which music plays the role of paradigm. Nevertheless the author grasps a lot of quotations from different disciplines and topics, ― e.g., theology, policy, philosophy, music, chemistry ― with the aim of depicting the creation of a second nature in music according the rules of twelve-note composition established by Arnold Schoenberg. The starting point of this complicated narrative is the reinterpretation of Theodor W. Adorno’s “Philosophie der neuen Musik”, a book that inspired Mann in tracing the idea of “second nature” created by the composer Adrian Leverkühn. The article focuses on some keywords used in the famous novel, and taken from inorganic chemistry and geology, working as metaphors on the thin line between nature and nurture. This analogy is retraceable in the biography of Adrian Leverkühn, whose music is the result of a demiurgic, daemonic power he gained after his deal with the devil.