Hubert Ohl Ethos und Spiel: Thomas Manns Frühwerk und die Wiener Moderne -- Eine Revision Softcover volume, measuring approximately 6" x9", shows light shelfwear. Binding is sound. Pages are clean and bright. Rombach Verlag, 1995. Rombach Wissenschaft - Reihe Literatur. Band 39 First edition. 3793091295 179 pages. "The study first demonstrates that Thomas Mann’s frequently cited artist-versus-bourgeois dichotomy is borrowed from Hermann Bahr’s novel "Die gute Schule"; this provided the young author with the enduring fundamental pattern for his interpretation of himself and the world. It is therefore consistent that his early work—as the subsequent analyses show—while taking up central motifs of European "Décadence" or aestheticism, does not participate in their critical deconstruction (as the literary works of Schnitzler or Hofmannsthal do), but rather contents itself with their effective portrayal and justification. Right up until "The Magic Mountain", Thomas Mann the artist remains the "chronicler and interpreter of "Décadence", largely untouched by the intellectual movements of the era."