The article focuses on the reception of Schopenhauer’s philosophy in Thomas Mann’s well known novel The Magic Mountain. While Schopenhauer’s influence on Mann in widely recognized by the historians of German literature, in the present paper the relation between two protagonists of the novel, Hans Castorp and Clavdia Chauchat, is presented as a literary illustration of the philosopher’s doctrine. Thomas Mann uses the “mysticism of body” as an attempt to experience Schopenhauer’s transcendence. Music plays the analogous role in the novel – being understood in terms of Schopnehauer’s aesthetics. The Magic Mountain is shown as an example of artistic conception rooted in a philosophical system, although the latter is treated as a starting point rather than a goal of the artistic creation.
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