Dionysos Versus Mose: Mythos, Monotheismus Und Asthetische Moderne 1900-1950

Around 1900, the history of European ideas shows a growing fascination with the contrast between myth and monotheism, between the many gods and the one God. In the mirror of this ancient topos, fundamental questions of modernity are reflected: the relationship between immanence and transcendence, heteronomy and freedom, tolerance and dogma. Matthias Lowe's study reconstructs the modern discourse on myth and monotheism and its aesthetic potential, which is released especially in the early 20th century, in Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Gerhart Hauptmann, Arnold Schonberg, and Thomas Mann. In aestheticizing myth and monotheism, these intellectuals are not pursuing interests in the history of religion. Rather, in the guise of literary myths or biblical stories, they struggle to interpret modernity.