ABSTRACT
In writing Doctor Faustus, Thomas Mann sought to come to terms with Modernism in writing Doctor Faustus, which he had till then avoided doing, for, as he often jokingly said, he considered himself a man of the nineteenth century. Thomas Mann called Joyce the greatest literary genius of our epoch. He did not read Ulysses; his mastery of English was not up to it. Doctor Faustus is a musical work in many senses. Obviously, it is a work about music. It is the life-story of a composer. However, Doctor Faustus is not only about music, but is itself musically structured; it is a musical composition in verbal form. The difference between Thomas Mann and Theodor. W. Adorno in this one local passage might seem minor, but if pushed further it reveals something about the construction and meaning of the whole work that soon opens up into a great gulf between them.
