Thomas Mann’s Jewish Homosexual Modernity: Wälsungenblut as a Poetological Novella

Abstract: Thomas Mann planned to publish his “ Judengeschichte ” (“story about Jews”) Wälsungenblut (The Blood of the Volsungs) in 1905/1906, but withdrew it because of an impending scandal concerning similarities between the novella’s characters and his wife’s family. Only in 1921 was an expensive bibliophile edition in German published, followed by French, English, and Hungarian translations in 1931 and 1936. This article offers a fresh perspective on the antisemitic stereotypes present in the novella, which have been discussed extensively in the past few decades. By understanding this novella as a story about speech, Wälsungenblut is read here as a reflection on Mann’s poetological standpoint toward modernity. In Wälsungenblut , Mann portrays his literature as Jewish and homosexual— not in the sense of authentic Jewishness and homosexuality, but in the sense of antisemitic and antihomosexual constructions.