The Magic Mountain

The Magic Mountain

by

Thomas Mann

Lodovico Settembrini Character Analysis

Lodovico Settembrini is a resident of the Berghof. An Italian intellectual, he is devoted to Enlightenment ideals of humanism, personal freedom, and democracy and loves to talk about them using crafty but compelling rhetoric. He represents the rationality and democracy that characterize (in the book’s oversimplified reading) Western ideals. Immediately upon meeting Hans, he appoints himself the impressionable youth’s mentor, a situation Hans reacts to with considerable ambiguity. While he does enjoy listening to Settembrini talk, he also resents the older man for condescending to him. As a result, he disregards a lot of the genuinely good advice Settembrini offers him. The novel generally portrays Settembrini and his Western ideals in a positive light, particularly compared to the corrupting forces of irrationality, submission, and decadence that other characters (namely Clavdia Chauchat, Leo Naphta, and Mynheer Peeperkorn) represent. However, like these other characters, Settembrini’s flaw is in his failure to act on his principles. Ultimately, though he may urge Hans to take control of his life and return to the real world, he fails to heed his own advice.

Lodovico Settembrini Quotes in The Magic Mountain

The The Magic Mountain quotes below are all either spoken by Lodovico Settembrini or refer to Lodovico Settembrini. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Time  Theme Icon
).
Part 4, Chapter 1: A Necessary Purchase Quotes

Illness is, rather, a debasement—indeed, a painful debasement of humanity, injurious to the very concept itself. And although one may tend and nurse illness in the individual case, to honor it intellectually is an aberration—imprint that on your minds!—an aberration and the beginning of all intellectual aberrations.

Related Characters: Lodovico Settembrini (speaker), Hans Castorp, Leo Naphta
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 1: Eternal Soup and Sudden Clarity Quotes

“The only healthy and noble and indeed, let me expressly point out, the only religious way in which to regard death is to perceive and feel it as a constituent part of life, as life’s holy prerequisite, and not to separate it intellectually, to set it up in opposition to life, or, worse, to play it off against life in some disgusting fashion—for that is indeed the antithesis of a healthy, noble, reasonable, and religious view. […] Death is to be honored as the cradle of life, the womb of renewal. Once separated from life, it becomes grotesque, a wraith—or even worse. For as an independent spiritual power, death is a very depraved force, whose wicked attractions are very strong and without doubt can cause the most abominable confusion of the human mind.”

Related Characters: Lodovico Settembrini (speaker), Hans Castorp, Leo Naphta, Dr. Behrens
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 3: Freedom Quotes

“Analysis is good as a tool of enlightenment and civilization—to the extent that it shakes stupid preconceptions, quashes natural biases, and undermines authority. Good, in other words, to the extent that it liberates, refines, and humanizes—it makes slaves ripe for freedom. It is bad, very bad, to the extent that it prevents action, damages life at its roots, and is incapable of shaping it. Analysis can be very unappetizing, as unappetizing as death, to which it may very well be linked—a relative of the grave and its foul anatomy.”

Related Characters: Lodovico Settembrini (speaker), Hans Castorp, Dr. Krokowski
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 1: Changes Quotes

“Well, my good engineer, how did you like the pomegranate?”

Related Characters: Lodovico Settembrini (speaker), Hans Castorp, Clavdia Chauchat
Page Number: 394
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 2: Someone Else Quotes

“Oh, you and your learning! You’re always learning up here—about biology and botany and slippery turning points. And you started in on ‘time’ your first day here. When what we’re here to do is to get healthier, not more clever—healthier, until we’re truly healthy, so they can finally let us go free and send us back to the flatlands cured.”

Related Characters: Joachim Ziemssen (speaker), Hans Castorp, Clavdia Chauchat, Lodovico Settembrini, Leo Naphta, Dr. Behrens
Page Number: 379
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 3: The City of God and Evil Deliverance Quotes

His form is logic, but his nature is confusion.

Related Characters: Lodovico Settembrini (speaker), Hans Castorp, Joachim Ziemssen, Leo Naphta
Page Number: 399
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 6: Operationes Spirituales Quotes

Illness was supremely human, Naphta immediately rebutted, because to be human was to be ill.

Related Characters: Leo Naphta (speaker), Hans Castorp, Lodovico Settembrini
Page Number: 456
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 7: Snow Quotes

Death is a great power. You take off your hat and tiptoe past his presence, rocking your way forward. […] Reason stands foolish before him, for reason is only virtue, but death is freedom and kicking over the traces, chaos and lust. Lust, my dream says, not love. Death and love—there is no rhyming them, that is a preposterous rhyme, a false rhyme. Love stands opposed to death—it alone, and not reason, is stronger than death. Only love, and not reason, yields kind thoughts. […] Oh, what a clear dream I’ve dreamed, how well I’ve ‘played king’! I will remember it. I will keep faith with death in my heart, but I will clearly remember that if faithfulness to death and to what is past rules our thoughts and deeds, that leads only to wickedness, dark lust, and hatred of humankind. For the sake of goodness and love, man shall grant death no dominion over his thoughts.

Related Characters: Hans Castorp (speaker), Lodovico Settembrini, Leo Naphta
Page Number: 487
Explanation and Analysis:
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Lodovico Settembrini Quotes in The Magic Mountain

The The Magic Mountain quotes below are all either spoken by Lodovico Settembrini or refer to Lodovico Settembrini. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Time  Theme Icon
).
Part 4, Chapter 1: A Necessary Purchase Quotes

Illness is, rather, a debasement—indeed, a painful debasement of humanity, injurious to the very concept itself. And although one may tend and nurse illness in the individual case, to honor it intellectually is an aberration—imprint that on your minds!—an aberration and the beginning of all intellectual aberrations.

Related Characters: Lodovico Settembrini (speaker), Hans Castorp, Leo Naphta
Page Number: 97
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 1: Eternal Soup and Sudden Clarity Quotes

“The only healthy and noble and indeed, let me expressly point out, the only religious way in which to regard death is to perceive and feel it as a constituent part of life, as life’s holy prerequisite, and not to separate it intellectually, to set it up in opposition to life, or, worse, to play it off against life in some disgusting fashion—for that is indeed the antithesis of a healthy, noble, reasonable, and religious view. […] Death is to be honored as the cradle of life, the womb of renewal. Once separated from life, it becomes grotesque, a wraith—or even worse. For as an independent spiritual power, death is a very depraved force, whose wicked attractions are very strong and without doubt can cause the most abominable confusion of the human mind.”

Related Characters: Lodovico Settembrini (speaker), Hans Castorp, Leo Naphta, Dr. Behrens
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 3: Freedom Quotes

“Analysis is good as a tool of enlightenment and civilization—to the extent that it shakes stupid preconceptions, quashes natural biases, and undermines authority. Good, in other words, to the extent that it liberates, refines, and humanizes—it makes slaves ripe for freedom. It is bad, very bad, to the extent that it prevents action, damages life at its roots, and is incapable of shaping it. Analysis can be very unappetizing, as unappetizing as death, to which it may very well be linked—a relative of the grave and its foul anatomy.”

Related Characters: Lodovico Settembrini (speaker), Hans Castorp, Dr. Krokowski
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 1: Changes Quotes

“Well, my good engineer, how did you like the pomegranate?”

Related Characters: Lodovico Settembrini (speaker), Hans Castorp, Clavdia Chauchat
Page Number: 394
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 2: Someone Else Quotes

“Oh, you and your learning! You’re always learning up here—about biology and botany and slippery turning points. And you started in on ‘time’ your first day here. When what we’re here to do is to get healthier, not more clever—healthier, until we’re truly healthy, so they can finally let us go free and send us back to the flatlands cured.”

Related Characters: Joachim Ziemssen (speaker), Hans Castorp, Clavdia Chauchat, Lodovico Settembrini, Leo Naphta, Dr. Behrens
Page Number: 379
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 3: The City of God and Evil Deliverance Quotes

His form is logic, but his nature is confusion.

Related Characters: Lodovico Settembrini (speaker), Hans Castorp, Joachim Ziemssen, Leo Naphta
Page Number: 399
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 6: Operationes Spirituales Quotes

Illness was supremely human, Naphta immediately rebutted, because to be human was to be ill.

Related Characters: Leo Naphta (speaker), Hans Castorp, Lodovico Settembrini
Page Number: 456
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 6, Chapter 7: Snow Quotes

Death is a great power. You take off your hat and tiptoe past his presence, rocking your way forward. […] Reason stands foolish before him, for reason is only virtue, but death is freedom and kicking over the traces, chaos and lust. Lust, my dream says, not love. Death and love—there is no rhyming them, that is a preposterous rhyme, a false rhyme. Love stands opposed to death—it alone, and not reason, is stronger than death. Only love, and not reason, yields kind thoughts. […] Oh, what a clear dream I’ve dreamed, how well I’ve ‘played king’! I will remember it. I will keep faith with death in my heart, but I will clearly remember that if faithfulness to death and to what is past rules our thoughts and deeds, that leads only to wickedness, dark lust, and hatred of humankind. For the sake of goodness and love, man shall grant death no dominion over his thoughts.

Related Characters: Hans Castorp (speaker), Lodovico Settembrini, Leo Naphta
Page Number: 487
Explanation and Analysis: