Introduction -- Chapter I: Ovid and the Ars Amatoria -- I. The Problem -- II. The didactic imitation -- III. The elegiac imitation -- IV. Book I and the nullus pulvis principle -- V. Book II and the servitium artis -- VI. Book III and the anti-Pygmalion principle -- Chapter 2: Kierkegaard and the »Diary of the Seducer« -- I. Kierkegaard and the Ars Amatoria -- II. Literary form and personal identity -- III. Johannes' life as literature -- IV. The dialectic of self-fashioning -- V. Cordelia and the anti-Pygmalion principle -- Chapter 3: Thomas Mann and the early Felix Krull -- I. Manolescu in the mirror -- II. Inheritance and imitation: Goethe in Felix Krull -- III. Interlude: the new and novel play between -- IV. Felix's retrospective life as literature -- V. Felix's dialectic of self-fashioning -- VI. Conscription -- Chapter 4: Thomas Mann and the late Felix Krull -- I. »Wiederkehr« -- II. »Das zitathafte Leben« -- Conclusion -- Bibliography.