Intertextuality

Thomas Mann’s works form the bedrock of 20th and early 21st century explo-rations of the literary Bildungsreise to Italy. As such, this first chapter is dedicated to one of Mann’s works—Mario und der Zauberer—and this first section focusses on close intertextual engagements with Mann’s literary Bildungsreise to Italy. This attention on Mann’s work, and on two intertex-tual preoccupations with it, serves also as a meaningful platform for the second half of this discussion. Although the texts considered in the second section stray beyond a direct intertextual focus, Mann’s works continue to hold an implicit paradigmatic position.