ABSTRACT
Klaus Mann's late modernist novel Mephisto: The Novel of a Career was published in Amsterdam in 1936 while its author was in exile from Nazi Germany. The character of Hofgen is based on Klaus Mann's former brother-in-law, the actor Gustaf Grundgens, whose success on stage and in Weimar films M and Liebelei propelled him to stardom in Germany. Mephisto is full of symbolic transformations and metamorphoses which fuse social and cultural elements in a moralistic tale warning of excessive individualism and careerist overreaching. The chapter examines two types of transformation which relate to a reading of Mephisto as a modern European tale of metamorphosis. The first concerns a reworking of the Mann family romance, in which Klaus's father, Thomas, plays a significant role as national writer and bourgeois patriarch; and second concerns the appropriation of Faust myth in this magico-political tale. The Weimar period gave rise to a renewed interest in the Faust myth, particularly in new medium of cinema.
