Geheimes Lachen und ambivalente Scherze: Thomas Manns Transformation hebräischer Polysemie in den Joseph-Romanen

Following a text-oriented method, the paper discusses Thomas Mann’s interpretation and re-elaboration of a Biblical linguistic structure within the semantic field of ‘laughter’. Mann draws inspiration from this polysemous concept and transfuses it into his biblical tetralogy Joseph und seine Brüder as a vehicle to allusively hint at his most recurrent themes, thus bringing them once more to the foreground. By making reference to two biblical passages where the terms relating to ‘laughter’ and ‘joke’ are employed with a particular sexual connotation, Thomas Mann intertwines his thematic threads. Aim of this paper is therefore to show, by way of examples rather than general considerations, how Mann’s ‘compositional method’ works. Expanding the somewhat scanty Biblical storyline, Mann interweaves its basic narrative structure with a lot of ‘associative digressions’, subplots, secondary episodes which he derives not only from biblical and post-biblical Judaism, from the Christian exegesis of the Scriptures, from classical antiquity and from the imagery of the Ancient Near East, but also from the dense network created by his literary themes and motifs. He thus gives way to a vast intertextuality imbued with irony and humour, to an anachronistic juxtaposition of narrative elements and a manipulation of his literary sources. These are strategies which run throughout Mann’s oeuvre, constituting the distinctive feature of his biblical ‘epic novel’ and of his literary production at large.