Abstract

JUNCO, Ethel. Thomas Mann: The mortal kiss of beauty. Revista Col. San Luis [online]. 2018, vol.8, n.17, pp.31-50. ISSN 2007-8846.  https://doi.org/10.21696/rcsl8172018800.

The aim of this paper is to offer an interpretation of the story “Tristan” by Thomas Mann, in Orphic key and the myth-story, descent-recognition and ascent-self-possession border, in order to value the experience of the supreme human pathos, love, and its constant object, beauty. Among the results, it is determined that the conditions of such experience are played at the myth-history border, understanding that the myth -space of gods-men union- pro-motes it and the history -anti-metaphysical territory- limits and condemns it. Hence the necessary culmination in death, transmuted into absolute life. Among the contributions, a reading in present tense of the musical art and its transfer in a cathartic sense is postulated; two questions based on the story are proposed: what nutritional relationship is pending in the life-art binomial and what possibility we have of transfiguring the aesthetic experience into a religious one.

Keywords : Orpheus; Tristan; beauty; death; Thomas Mann.