SOURCE: "Montage and the Faust Theme: The Influence of the 1587 Faustbuch on Thomas Mann's Montage Technique in Doktor Faustus," in Journal of European Studies, Vol. 13, 1983, pp. 109-21.

In the following essay, Allen argues that the montage technique used by Thomas Mann in his 1947 novel Doktor Faustus was adapted from the fragmented structure of the anonymous 1587 Historia. She also discusses the appropriateness of the montage structure to the Faust story.

I

In his scholarship on Thomas Mann's use of the 1587 Faustbuch in Doktor Faustus, Dietrich Assmann observes that the Faustbuch exhibits "eine gewisse Montagetechnik" of its own.¹ He quotes Hans Henning's comment that the wealth of sources available to the author of the Faustbuch were so extensive, he must have possessed considerable erudition for his time. Assmann then notes that practically these very words could have been written about Thomas Mann's novel.² Indeed, these words do seem to have...