Coming out of His Father's Closet: Klaus Mann's "Der fromme Tanz" as an Anti-"Tod in Venedig"

In Der fromme Tanz (1925), Klaus Mann creates an anti-Tod in Venedig, thereby affirming what his father Thomas repudiated in himself and in Gustav von Aschenbach: his homosexuality. In this pioneering attempt to map out a gay identity, Mann allows the intersection of personal and literary self-fashioning to function as a locus for the establishment of a cultural identity for the gay Weimar Republic youth. An analysis of protagonist Andreas Magnus and of autobiographical sources reveals an antipathetic reading of his father's novella and a main character who is a polar opposite of Aschenbach. Turning instead to George and Wedekind for inspiration, Mann counters the austere rejection of "Sympathie mit dem Abgrund" with the "Vergottung des Leibes" exemplified in Andreas's unrequited love for Niels. With Andreas as a new Aschenbach, Mann attempts to assert himself against his father by proposing life-affirming consequences of embracing and sublimating homoerotic desire.