Der Tod in Venedig

Product Information

Philip Kitcher, Deaths in Venice: The Cases of Gustav von Aschenbach. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Mulți au pretins că trebuie să privim din unghi simbolic și gondolele întunecate „ca niște sicrie”, și „aerul putred, de mlaștină” de deasupra străzilor strîmte, și figura bătrînului de pe vasul care-l aduce pe scriitor în oraș. Eu aș citi literal (și nu alegoric) întreaga desfășurare a epidemiei, fiindcă ea poate fi comparată cu evenimente reale și foarte apropiate de noi. Să vedem... Die Werke des Protagonisten Gustav von Aschenbach, die im zweiten Kapitel vorgestellt werden, sind identisch mit bereits abgeschlossenen bzw. geplanten Arbeiten Thomas Manns, auch wenn ihre Titel für die Novelle leicht verfremdet wurden. To put the matter in a slightly different context - make a small leap in your mind and imagine that the love-object here is instead a 40-year old woman. If the latter was the case, would the scenario in DIV still be creepy? Indeed, it would. What would make the scenario still creepy? It would still be a purely physical obsession characterized by stalkerish behaviour. Ein Bildnis des Knaben enthält: H. Wysling, Y. Schmidlin (Hrsg.): Thomas Mann. Ein Leben in Bildern.

A translation published in 2005 by Michael Henry Heim won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize. Having not read either of these works, I'm sure there are some references that strolled right past me without me having a clue they were even in the room. Nevertheless, I don't think a familiarity with these texts is essential to enjoying this story, though it could certainly enhance it. Love and Death on Long Island (1997), starring John Hurt as a middle-aged writer who becomes obsessed with a young actor portrayed by Jason Priestley, based on Gilbert Adair's book Meanwhile, a deadly cholera epidemic is stealthily spreading through the city, and von Aschenbach, though he can feel the onset of symptoms, is too enthralled to make his escape. France, Peter (2000). The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation. Oxford University Press. pp. 333-334. ISBN 0198183593. ("disastrous ... a reworked, sanitized version of the text".)

Last on

This man was ready to sacrifice on the altar of art, the strength he had garnered from his sleep. This is his story.

Thomas Mann's Death in Venice resembles a portrait of the artist as an older man, a figure forced to confront & evaluate his path in life, regretting much of what he sees. Throughout, Gustav Aschenbach speaks of an artist's being conditioned to rather ruthlessly pursue truth as he envisions it, with that pursuit being an intellectual one that almost precludes much in the way of overt emotion or revealed passion.

Los dos primeros capítulos se pierde muchísimo en un contenido que básicamente son divagaciones del personaje principal sobre la literatura, la creatividad, el arte y la escritura y su oficio como alguien en el mundo que debe dar ejemplo moral a través de su profesión. In spite of my criticism of Mann's ideas and of his patches of overwrought, overemotional purple prose, the latter suits the subject of the story well, and there are certainly a lot of thought-provoking ideas and well-executed imagery. Holger Pils, Kerstin Klein: Wollust des Untergangs – 100 Jahre Thomas Manns „Der Tod in Venedig“. Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1069-8. Ernst Braches: Kommentar zum Tod in Venedig. De Buitenkant, Amsterdam 2016, ISBN 978-94-90913-56-4.

Despite being written by a German author about a Prussian author, and set in 20th century Italy, this story has Greek tragedy written all over it. Mann's story is steeped in allusions to mythology, and is strongly influenced by Plato's The Symposium and ] Phaedrus, carrying forward their central arguments regarding the man’s struggle between passion and wisdom.Aschenbach considers warning Tadzio's mother of the danger; however, he decides not to, knowing that if he does, Tadzio will leave the hotel and be lost to him. But Aschenbach is not rational; "nothing is as abhorrent to anyone who is beside himself as returning into himself.... The awareness that he was complicit, that he too was guilty, intoxicated him...." [2] Herkunft, Lebensweg und Charakter Aschenbachs werden beschrieben, dazu seine Werke, ihr literarischer Stellenwert und ihre Publikumswirkung. One night, a dream filled with orgiastic Dionysian imagery reveals to him the sexual nature of his feelings for Tadzio. Afterward, he begins staring at the boy so openly and following him so persistently that Aschenbach feels the boy's guardians have finally noticed, and they take to warning Tadzio whenever he approaches too near the strange, solitary man. However, Aschenbach's feelings, although passionately intense, remain unvoiced; he never touches Tadzio or speaks to him, and while there is some indication that Tadzio is aware of his admiration, the two exchange nothing more than occasionally surreptitious glances. Since the piece is well known as being a landmark work of fiction regarding male homosexuality, I am not going to focus on that in my review, or on its other element that has been flogged to death as well, being the rather extreme youth (age 14) of the love object. Volker Hage: Tadzios schönes Geheimnis. In: Der Spiegel. Nr. 52, 2002, S. 152 ff. ( online – 21. Dezember 2002).

Einsamkeit in diesem Zusammenhang spielt an auf Schopenhauers Gedanken zu Geistigkeit und „geistiger Aristokratie“. Das Motiv des Todesboten gipfelt in der Figur des anmutigen Tadzio. Im Schlussbild der Novelle meint der Sterbende, Tadzio lächle ihm zu und deute vom Meeresufer aus mit der Hand „ins Verheißungsvoll-Ungeheure“. Diese Geste macht aus Tadzio eine Hermes-Inkarnation, denn zu den Aufgaben dieser Gottheit gehörte es, die Seelen der Verstorbenen in die Totenwelt zu führen.

Arts and Ideas podcast

There is a song in the iconic 1930 German film, The Blue Angel, with Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings as an aging professor who, late in his somber life, is drawn to a sultry temptress, with Dietrich singing about how she scorches the wings of men attracted to her. I sensed something similar at play in Death in Venice, with my own interpretation that Aschenbach came to the hotel with a sense of impending doom & Tadzio quite able to serve as a symbol of a road not taken, erotic desire but one caused by what Aschenbach takes to be intrinsic beauty.