Der Tod in Venedig

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A translation published in 2005 by Michael Henry Heim won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize. I have begun work on a strange thing which I brought with me from Venice, a novella, earnest and pure in form. I could not help contrasting my own trip to Venice a few years ago with his: I carried my own luggage, unpacked it, was never rude to those serving me as he was on several occasions, beginning with the gondolier, and would never have dreamed of sitting on critical public health information simply so I could prolong my sense of amusement (the protagonist knew that the city was in the grip of an epidemic and that he should leave, but made no effort to pass this information along to the probably-less-well-informed Polish family who for all we know also succumbed to it).

Aschenbach's name and character may be inspired by the homosexual German poet August von Platen-Hallermünde. 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. I had only to arrange them when they showed at once and in the oddest way their capacity as elements of composition" (ibid, p. When he reaches the railway station and discovers his trunk has been misplaced, he pretends to be angry, but is really overjoyed; he decides to remain in Venice and wait for his lost luggage. This was clever and effective, but it also showed what a gray, dull, duty-driven life this poor protagonist led and how some healthier outlets for his sexuality might have led to quite a different ending.

Immer wieder bedenkt der von der äußeren Erscheinung des Knaben hingerissene Aschenbach die Form so dichterisch-philosophisch, als sei sie etwas an sich Seiendes, etwas Wunderbares, ja: Göttliches: sie sei als Gottesgedanke die eine und reine Vollkommenheit. But as a reader, I felt another danger, the danger that the protagonist might do more than look, and the impact this could have on the child. As the story opens, he is strolling outside a cemetery and sees a coarse-looking, red-haired foreigner who stares back at him belligerently.

I purposely avoided reading about the real life events that inspired the book because I think a work of literature should stand on its own merits and as much as possible we should approach it without the distractions of What Really Happened. Mann also was influenced by Sigmund Freud and his views on dreams, as well as by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who had visited Venice several times. In wunderschön gewählter, ja: zu Diamant geschliffener Sprache geleitet Thomas Mann den Leser durch Aschenbachs leidenschaftlichen Irrtum bis zum traumverlorenen Ende auf sanften, in das unendliche Meer hineinragenden Sandbänken am Ufer der zerrinnenden Welt; nachhaltig beeindruckt schließt der Leser das Buch, diese tote Form, um den tiefreichend belebten Bildern ergriffen-andächtig nachzusinnen.To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. The trope of placing classical deities in contemporary settings was popular at the time when Mann was writing Death in Venice.

The story originally appeared in 1912, in two numbers of the journal Neue Rundschau, and subsequently in a private edition of 100 unsigned copies. The novella is intertextual, with the chief sources being first the connection of erotic love to philosophical wisdom traced in Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus, and second the Nietzschean contrast between Apollo, the god of restraint and shaping form, and Dionysus, the god of excess and passion. There was m effort to print the book the way a german book's language appears in the usual printed german editions.

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.

Although hauntingly-written (I had to follow along with an English translation side-by-side to insure I understood it all) with many devices that seemed almost cinematic such as the recurrent red-headed man, harbinger of death and aging in every case, I simply could not overcome my aversion to the idea of a middle-aged man (who in the early 20th century would have been closer to death than a similarly-aged European today) so attracted to a boy (14 in the story, but the story is based on an actual crush the author developed on a 12-year-old while visiting Venice) that he prolongs his stay. The novella's physical description of Aschenbach was based on a photograph of the composer Gustav Mahler. The boy who inspired "Tadzio" was Baron Władysław Moes, whose first name was usually shortened as Władzio or just Adzio. Aschenbach at first ignores the danger because it somehow pleases him to think that the city's disease is akin to his own hidden, corrupting passion for the boy. Tadzio was based on a real boy named Władzio whom Mann had observed during his 1911 visit to the city.In the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation it is criticized for its "puritanism", which saw Lowe-Porter "tone down Mann's treatment of sexuality, especially homoeroticism". Modris Eksteins notes the similarities between Aschenbach and the Russian choreographer Sergei Diaghilev, writing that, although the two never met, "Diaghilev knew Mann's story well. After a false start in traveling to Pula on the Austro-Hungarian coast (now in Croatia), Aschenbach realizes he was "meant" to go to Venice and takes a suite in the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the island of Lido. A stage production in 2013, directed by Thomas Ostermeier at the Schaubühne theatre in Berlin, titled Death in Venice/Kindertotenlieder, took elements from Gustav Mahler's song cycle Kindertotenlieder.