Der Tod in Venedig

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Solitude produces originality, bold & astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportionate, the absurd, and the forbidden.” Gustav Aschenbach got early fame, he is a writer, a poet of overburdened and already worn out. He lived in Munich as an honored bourgeois. To quench the thirst of his travel, He goes to Adriatic Island and then to Venice.

Einen wilden Höhepunkt findet von Aschenbachs Entartung in dem Traum des fünften Kapitels. Er gerät unter die zügellos Feiernden eines antiken Dionysos-Kultes. „Aber mit ihnen, in ihnen war der Träumende nun dem fremden Gotte gehörig. Ja, sie waren er selbst, als sie reißend und mordend sich auf die [Opfer-]Tiere hinwarfen und dampfende Fetzen verschlangen, als auf zerwühltem Moosgrund grenzenlose Vermischung begann, dem Gotte zum Opfer. Und seine Seele kostete Unzucht und Raserei des Unterganges.“ Das Klima Venedigs bekommt Aschenbach nicht. Während des Versuches einer Abreise (drittes Kapitel) erkennt er die Stadt „als einen ihm unmöglichen und verbotenen Aufenthalt, dem er nicht gewachsen war.“ Aschenbachs Ohnmacht mündet schließlich im Todeswunsch. Von dem Angestellten eines englischen Reisebüros wusste er, dass die indische Cholera in der Stadt grassiert, dass kürzlich eine Grünwarenhändlerin an der Seuche gestorben war, „wahrscheinlich waren Nahrungsmittel infiziert worden, Gemüse, Fleisch oder Milch“. Deutsche Tagesblätter hatten zudem über „die Heimsuchung der Lagunenstadt“ berichtet. Trotzdem kauft er „in der kranken Stadt“ vor einem kleinen Gemüseladen „einige Früchte, Erdbeeren, überreife und weiche Ware, und aß im Gehen davon“. [11] All the details of the story, beginning with the man at the cemetery, are taken from experience...In the dining-room, on the very first day, we saw the Polish family, which looked exactly the way my husband described them: the girls were dressed rather stiffly and severely, and the very charming, beautiful boy of about 13 was wearing a sailor suit with an open collar and very pretty lacings. He caught my husband's attention immediately. This boy was tremendously attractive, and my husband was always watching him with his companions on the beach. He didn't pursue him through all of Venice—that he didn't do—but the boy did fascinate him, and he thought of him often… I still remember that my uncle, Privy Counsellor Friedberg, a famous professor of canon law in Leipzig, was outraged: "What a story! And a married man with a family!" [8] 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. First, the introduction by Michael Cunningham is a fantastic introduction of the difficulties associated with translation. All fiction is a translation. All works differ, since they all are impacted by writer and reader. Both imperfect, both carrying their own history. Even the same work, read by the same reader at different times (think King Lear) will be interpreted anew, feel different to the reader at different stages and ages. So, it is with translations. Different translators are going to experience Mann's Death in Venice in different ways. Gustav von Aschenbach will appear the fool to some or an artist gripped by obscession and passion by others. There is no exactly right answer.

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H. T. Lowe-Porter's authorized translation, published in 1922 in Mann's Stories of Three Decades, [10] has been less well received by critics due to her reducing Mann's treatment of sexuality and homoeroticism. [11] [12]

One could muse that perhaps what Achenbach is rather saying, in what seems like a rationalization for his passion, that beauty can inspire love, the latter which is in itself beautiful. ...and yet, since in this specific context the object of that passion is so young, and vain, and since they had never even exchanged a word with one another, could this be love? Methinks not - this could surely be but an infatuation of the senses. Thomas Mann selbst hat den Tod in Venedig in seinem Lebensabriss die „Tragödie einer Entwürdigung“ genannt und dabei den Begriff Tragödie durchaus wörtlich gemeint, denn seine Novelle weist gleich mehrere klassizistische Merkmale auf: 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. Later, after spying the boy and his family at a beach, Aschenbach overhears Tadzio, the boy's name, and conceives what he first interprets as an uplifting, artistic interest.

Mann also remarks on Tadzio's narcissism with acute insight. According to The Real Tadzio: Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and the Boy Who Inspired It, the latter was indeed a pretty narcissistic person who enjoyed the attentions of older men, so Mann was pretty spot-on with his portrayals. For now...both of me will straddle the fence of wishy-washy indecision. However, regardless of whether my future interactions with the story add to or subtract from my first impression, there’s no denying that there is much to admire, even be amazed by, in this slim, tightly compacted work loaded with full-bodied ideas. I just wished for a deeper connection to the characters and the tale. The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous author in his early fifties who has recently been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement (thus acquiring the aristocratic "von" in his name). Because beauty, Phaedo, is the only thing that is divine and visible at the same time, and so it is the way of the artist to the soul. But do you believe, my dear Phaedo, that the one who reaches the intellectual through the senses can ever achieve wisdom and human dignity? Or do you believe (and I am leaving this to you) that it is a lovely but dangerous road that leads nowhere? Because you have to realize that we artists cannot take the path of beauty without Eros joining us and becoming our leader; we may be heroes in our own way, but we are still like women, because passion is what elevates us, and our desire is love—that is our lust and our disgrace. Do you see that poets can be neither sage nor dignified? We do not like final knowledge, because knowledge, Phaedo, has no dignity or severity: it knows, understands, forgives, without attitude; it is sympathetic to the abyss, it is the abyss.’

Within my review are images of Thomas Mann; Tadzio in the Visconti film version; Dirk Bogarde as Aschenbach from the Visconti film; the now-shuttered Hôtel des Bains in Venice in a 1915 photo; a young & rather boyish-looking Katia Mann, wife of Thomas. Der Gondoliere rudert von Aschenbach nicht zur Vaporetto-Station, sondern gegen dessen Willen über die Lagune zum Lido. Nachdem zuvor die Gondel mit einem Sarg verglichen worden ist, entsteht beim Leser eine Charon-Assoziation. Die letzte Überfahrt ist ebenfalls ohne Umkehr und der Fährmann bestimmt das Ziel. Y después se pierde aún más en simbolismos y literariedades sobre la peste que está azotando el lugar y que afecta a la población por la deficiencia y negligencia del estado solo para decir que el gobierno prefiere quedarse callado si se aseguran más dinero en el bolsillo.Volker Hage: Tadzios schönes Geheimnis. In: Der Spiegel. Nr. 52, 2002, S. 152 ff. ( online – 21. Dezember 2002). Aschenbach, a widower, considers travel a necessary evil, not something embraced willingly but rooted within his own sphere for ages & with with life seemingly on the wane, he craves a distant scene as a kind of release, to counter his fastidious self-discipline, his life as an ascetic writer. He comments that he has "done homage to the intellect & overworked the soil of knowledge" & so in quest of change, he heads by degrees for a grand hotel in Venice. 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. He gave copies of it to his intimates". [6] Diaghilev often stayed at the same hotel as Aschenbach, the Grand Hotel des Bains, and took his young male lovers there. Eventually, like Aschenbach, Diaghilev died in Venice. [7] The real Tadzio edit The former Grand Hôtel des Bains in Venice where Thomas Mann stayed and where he set action in the novel. Holger Pils, Kerstin Klein: Wollust des Untergangs – 100 Jahre Thomas Manns „Der Tod in Venedig“. Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1069-8.

No hay sombra de duda que como lector siempre me voy a cruzar con alguna novela que me parecerá un poco redundante y demasiado superficial y pretenciosa para mi gusto. Bueno, este ha sido mi caso.Odd novella about unrequited pederasty that, like so many novellas with their single themes and small casts, feels a bit overstretched. But there is reason this is still so widely read today (curious how, unlike LOLITA, the subject of this book isn't as important as the theme when it comes to criticism): the writing. Mann's marvelous turns of phrase carry the day and his ruminations on the nature of creativity stand in wonderful counterpoint to Marcel's more spiritual realization near the end of LOST TIME. Consider: