Death in Venice
Encyclopedia
The novella
Death in Venice was written by the German author Thomas Mann
, and was first published in 1913 as Der Tod in Venedig. The plot of the work presents a great writer suffering writer's block who visits Venice
and is liberated and uplifted, then increasingly obsessed, by the sight of a stunningly beautiful youth. Though he never speaks to the boy, much less touches him, the writer finds himself drawn deep into ruinous inward passion; meanwhile Venice, and finally the writer himself, succumb to a cholera plague. The novella is powerfully 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 the god of restraint and shaping form, Apollo
, and the god of excess and passion, Dionysus
.
The boy in the story ("Tadzio") is based on a boy (Władzio or Adzio, nicknames for the Polish name Władyslaw or Tadeusz respectively) Mann had seen during a visit to Venice in 1911.
" to his name). He is a man dedicated to his art, disciplined and ascetic to the point of severity, who was widowed at a young age. As the story opens, while strolling outside a cemetery, he sees a coarse-looking red-haired foreigner who stares back at him belligerently. Aschenbach walks away, embarrassed but curiously stimulated. He has a vision of a primordial swamp-wilderness, fertile, exotic and full of lurking danger. Soon afterwards, he resolves to take a holiday.
After a false start in traveling to Pula on the Yugoslav coast, Aschenbach realizes he "was meant" to go to Venice, and he takes a suite in the Grand Hôtel des Bains
on the Lido island. While shipbound and en route to the island he sees an elderly man, in company with a group of high-spirited youths, who has tried hard to create the illusion of youth with a wig, false teeth, makeup, and foppish attire. Aschenbach turns away in disgust. Soon afterwards he has a disturbing encounter with an unlicensed gondolier
—another red-haired, skull-faced foreigner—who repeats "I can row you well" when Aschenbach orders him to return to the wharf.
Aschenbach checks into his hotel, where at dinner he sees an aristocratic Polish
family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy in a sailor suit; Aschenbach, startled, realizes that the boy is supremely beautiful, like a Greek sculpture. His sisters, by contrast, are so severely dressed that they look like nuns. Soon afterward, after spying the boy and his family at a beach, Aschenbach overhears the lad's name, Tadzio, and conceives what he first experiences as an uplifting, artistic interest.
Soon the hot, humid weather begins to affect Aschenbach's health, and he decides to leave early and move to a more salubrious location. On the morning of his planned departure, he sees Tadzio again, and a powerful feeling of regret sweeps over him. When he reaches the railway station and discovers his trunk has been misdirected, he pretends to be angry, but is really overjoyed; he decides to remain in Venice and wait for his lost luggage. He happily returns to the hotel, and thinks no more of leaving.
Over the next days and weeks, Aschenbach's interest in the beautiful boy develops into an obsession. He watches him constantly, and secretly follows him around Venice. One evening, the boy directs a charming smile at him, looking, Aschenbach thinks, like Narcissus
smiling at his own reflection. Disconcerted, Aschenbach rushes outside, and in the empty garden whispers aloud, "I love you!"
Aschenbach next takes a trip into the city of Venice, where he sees a few discreetly worded notices from the Health Department warning of an unspecified contagion and advising people to avoid eating shellfish. He smells an unfamiliar strong odour everywhere, and later realises it is disinfectant. However, the authorities adamantly deny that the contagion is serious and the tourists continue to wander round the city, oblivious. 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. During this period, a third red-haired, disreputable-looking man crosses Aschenbach's path; this one belongs to a troupe of street singers who entertain at the hotel one night. Aschenbach listens entranced to songs that, in his former life, he would have despised – all the while stealing glances at Tadzio, who is leaning on a nearby parapet in a classically beautiful pose. The boy eventually, returns Aschenbach's glances and though the moment is brief it instills in the writer a sense that the attraction may be mutual.
Next, Aschenbach rallies his self-respect and decides to discover the reason for the health notices posted in the city. After being repeatedly assured that the sirocco
is the only health risk, he finds a British travel agent who reluctantly admits that there is a serious cholera
epidemic in Venice. 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.
One night, a dream filled with orgiastic Dionysian imagery reveals to him the sexual nature of his feelings for Tadzio. Afterwards, he begins staring at the boy so openly and following him so persistently that Aschenbach feels the boy's guardians finally notice, and take to warning Tadzio whenever he approaches too near the strange, solitary man. But Aschenbach's feelings, though passionately intense, remain unvoiced; he never touches Tadzio, or even speaks to him; and while there is some indication that Tadzio is aware of his admiration, the two exchange nothing more than the occasional surreptitious glance.
Aschenbach begins to fret about his aging face and body. In an attempt to look more attractive, he visits the hotel's barber shop almost daily, where the barber eventually persuades him to have his hair dyed and his face painted to look more youthful. The result is a fairly close approximation to the old man on the ship who had so appalled Aschenbach. Freshly dyed and rouged, he again shadows Tadzio through Venice in the oppressive heat. He loses sight of the boy in the heart of the city; then, exhausted and thirsty, he buys and eats some over-ripe strawberries and rests in an abandoned square, contemplating the Platonic ideal of beauty amidst the ruins of his own once-formidable dignity.
A few days later, Aschenbach goes to the lobby in his hotel, feeling ill and weak, and discovers that the Polish family plan to leave after lunch. He goes down to the beach to his usual deck chair. Tadzio is there, unsupervised for once, and accompanied by an older boy, Jasiu. A fight breaks out between the two boys, and Tadzio is quickly bested; afterward, he angrily leaves his companion and wades over to Aschenbach's part of the beach, where he stands for a moment looking out to sea; then turns halfway around to look at his admirer. To Aschenbach, it is as if the boy is beckoning to him: he tries to rise and follow, only to collapse sideways into his chair.
His body is discovered a few minutes later.
's love for 18-year-old Baroness
Ulrike von Levetzow
, which had led Goethe to write his Marienbad Elegy
. The May 1911 death of Gustav Mahler
in Vienna and Mann's interest in the boy Władzio during summer vacation in Venice (more below) were additional experiences occupying his thoughts. He used the story to illuminate certain convictions about the relationship between life and mind, with Gustav representing the intellectual. Mann was also influenced by Sigmund Freud
and his views on dreams, as well as by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
. He had visited Venice several times.
Left: First print 1912.
One important framework of references points to Greek mythology; Aschenbach's Venice seems populated by the gods. By dedicating himself to Apollo
, whom Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy took to represent restraint, form and the intellect, Aschenbach has denied the power of Dionysus
, Nietzsche's god of unreason and of passion – a voluntary act of what Freud would call "suppression". Dionysus seems to have followed Aschenbach to Venice with the intent of destroying him: the red-haired man who keeps crossing von Aschenbach's path, in the guise of different characters, could be a figure of Silenus
, Dionysus's mythological chief disciple. In the Benjamin Britten opera
these characters (the traveller, the gondolier, the leading player and the voice of Dionysus) are played by the same baritone
singer, who also plays the hotel manager, the barber and the old man on the Vaporetto. The trope of placing classical deities in contemporary settings was popular at the time when Mann was writing Death in Venice: in England, at almost the same time, E. M. Forster
was at work on an entire short-story collection based on this premise. The idea of the opposition of the Apollonian and Dionysian was first proposed by Nietzsche
in The Birth of Tragedy
and was also a popular motif of the time.
Aschenbach's name and character may be inspired by the homosexual German poet August von Platen-Hallermünde, whose poems about Venice are alluded to in the novella and who, like Aschenbach, dies of the cholera on an Italian island. The character's first name is virtually an anagram of August. The character's last name may be derived from von Platen's birthplace, Ansbach
. However, it has another clear significance: Aschenbach literally means "ash brook". The novella's physical description of Aschenbach was based on a photograph of the composer Gustav Mahler
. Mahler had made a strong personal impression on Mann when they met in Munich and Mann was shocked by the news of Mahler's death in Vienna. Mann applied Mahler's first name and facial appearance to Aschenbach but did not talk about it in public. (The soundtrack of the film
based on the novella made use of Mahler's compositions, particularly the "Adagietto" 4th movement from the Symphony No. 5
).
The boy who inspired "Tadzio" was Baron
Władysław Moes, whose first name was usually shortened as Władzio or just Adzio. This story was uncovered by Thomas Mann's translator, Andrzej Dołęgowski, around 1964, and was published in the German press in 1965. Some sources report that Moes himself did not learn of the connection until he saw the 1971 film version of the novel.
Władysław Moes was born on 17 November 1900 in Wierbka
, the second son and fourth child of Baron
Alexander Julius Moes. He was aged 11 when he was in Venice, significantly younger than Tadzio in the novella. Baron
Moes died on 17 December 1986 in Warshaw and is interred at the Powązki Cemetery
in Warsaw
. He was the subject of a biography, The Real Tadzio (Short Books, 2001) by Gilbert Adair
.
It was first published in book form in English in 1925 as Death in Venice and Other Stories, translated by Kenneth Burke
. W. H. Auden
called it the definitive translation.
A new translation was published in 2005 by Michael Henry Heim
which won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Prize.
version.
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
Death in Venice was written by the German author Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
, and was first published in 1913 as Der Tod in Venedig. The plot of the work presents a great writer suffering writer's block who visits Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
and is liberated and uplifted, then increasingly obsessed, by the sight of a stunningly beautiful youth. Though he never speaks to the boy, much less touches him, the writer finds himself drawn deep into ruinous inward passion; meanwhile Venice, and finally the writer himself, succumb to a cholera plague. The novella is powerfully intertextual, with the chief sources being first the connection of erotic love to philosophical wisdom traced in Plato's Symposium
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
and Phaedrus
Phaedrus
Phaedrus , Roman fabulist, was probably a Thracian slave, born in Pydna of Macedonia and lived in the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius...
, and second the Nietzschean contrast between the god of restraint and shaping form, Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
, and the god of excess and passion, Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
.
The boy in the story ("Tadzio") is based on a boy (Władzio or Adzio, nicknames for the Polish name Władyslaw or Tadeusz respectively) Mann had seen during a visit to Venice in 1911.
Plot summary
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 (and thus has acquired the aristocratic "vonVon
In German, von is a preposition which approximately means of or from.When it is used as a part of a German family name, it is usually a nobiliary particle, like the French, Spanish and Portuguese "de". At certain times and places, it has been illegal for anyone who was not a member of the nobility...
" to his name). He is a man dedicated to his art, disciplined and ascetic to the point of severity, who was widowed at a young age. As the story opens, while strolling outside a cemetery, he sees a coarse-looking red-haired foreigner who stares back at him belligerently. Aschenbach walks away, embarrassed but curiously stimulated. He has a vision of a primordial swamp-wilderness, fertile, exotic and full of lurking danger. Soon afterwards, he resolves to take a holiday.
After a false start in traveling to Pula on the Yugoslav coast, Aschenbach realizes he "was meant" to go to Venice, and he takes a suite in the Grand Hôtel des Bains
Grand Hotel des Bains
The Grand Hotel des Bains is a hotel on the Lido of Venice, northern Italy. Built in 1900 to attract wealthy tourists, it is remembered amongst other things for Thomas Mann's stay there in 1911, which inspired his novella Death in Venice...
on the Lido island. While shipbound and en route to the island he sees an elderly man, in company with a group of high-spirited youths, who has tried hard to create the illusion of youth with a wig, false teeth, makeup, and foppish attire. Aschenbach turns away in disgust. Soon afterwards he has a disturbing encounter with an unlicensed gondolier
Gondola
The gondola is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian Lagoon. For centuries gondolas were the chief means of transportation and most common watercraft within Venice. In modern times the iconic boats still have a role in public transport in...
—another red-haired, skull-faced foreigner—who repeats "I can row you well" when Aschenbach orders him to return to the wharf.
Aschenbach checks into his hotel, where at dinner he sees an aristocratic Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy in a sailor suit; Aschenbach, startled, realizes that the boy is supremely beautiful, like a Greek sculpture. His sisters, by contrast, are so severely dressed that they look like nuns. Soon afterward, after spying the boy and his family at a beach, Aschenbach overhears the lad's name, Tadzio, and conceives what he first experiences as an uplifting, artistic interest.
Soon the hot, humid weather begins to affect Aschenbach's health, and he decides to leave early and move to a more salubrious location. On the morning of his planned departure, he sees Tadzio again, and a powerful feeling of regret sweeps over him. When he reaches the railway station and discovers his trunk has been misdirected, he pretends to be angry, but is really overjoyed; he decides to remain in Venice and wait for his lost luggage. He happily returns to the hotel, and thinks no more of leaving.
Over the next days and weeks, Aschenbach's interest in the beautiful boy develops into an obsession. He watches him constantly, and secretly follows him around Venice. One evening, the boy directs a charming smile at him, looking, Aschenbach thinks, like Narcissus
Narcissus (mythology)
Narcissus or Narkissos , possibly derived from ναρκη meaning "sleep, numbness," in Greek mythology was a hunter from the territory of Thespiae in Boeotia who was renowned for his beauty. He was exceptionally proud, in that he disdained those who loved him...
smiling at his own reflection. Disconcerted, Aschenbach rushes outside, and in the empty garden whispers aloud, "I love you!"
Aschenbach next takes a trip into the city of Venice, where he sees a few discreetly worded notices from the Health Department warning of an unspecified contagion and advising people to avoid eating shellfish. He smells an unfamiliar strong odour everywhere, and later realises it is disinfectant. However, the authorities adamantly deny that the contagion is serious and the tourists continue to wander round the city, oblivious. 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. During this period, a third red-haired, disreputable-looking man crosses Aschenbach's path; this one belongs to a troupe of street singers who entertain at the hotel one night. Aschenbach listens entranced to songs that, in his former life, he would have despised – all the while stealing glances at Tadzio, who is leaning on a nearby parapet in a classically beautiful pose. The boy eventually, returns Aschenbach's glances and though the moment is brief it instills in the writer a sense that the attraction may be mutual.
Next, Aschenbach rallies his self-respect and decides to discover the reason for the health notices posted in the city. After being repeatedly assured that the sirocco
Sirocco
Sirocco, scirocco, , jugo or, rarely, siroc is a Mediterranean wind that comes from the Sahara and reaches hurricane speeds in North Africa and Southern Europe. It is known in North Africa by the Arabic word qibli or ghibli Sirocco, scirocco, , jugo or, rarely, siroc is a Mediterranean wind...
is the only health risk, he finds a British travel agent who reluctantly admits that there is a serious cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
epidemic in Venice. 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.
One night, a dream filled with orgiastic Dionysian imagery reveals to him the sexual nature of his feelings for Tadzio. Afterwards, he begins staring at the boy so openly and following him so persistently that Aschenbach feels the boy's guardians finally notice, and take to warning Tadzio whenever he approaches too near the strange, solitary man. But Aschenbach's feelings, though passionately intense, remain unvoiced; he never touches Tadzio, or even speaks to him; and while there is some indication that Tadzio is aware of his admiration, the two exchange nothing more than the occasional surreptitious glance.
Aschenbach begins to fret about his aging face and body. In an attempt to look more attractive, he visits the hotel's barber shop almost daily, where the barber eventually persuades him to have his hair dyed and his face painted to look more youthful. The result is a fairly close approximation to the old man on the ship who had so appalled Aschenbach. Freshly dyed and rouged, he again shadows Tadzio through Venice in the oppressive heat. He loses sight of the boy in the heart of the city; then, exhausted and thirsty, he buys and eats some over-ripe strawberries and rests in an abandoned square, contemplating the Platonic ideal of beauty amidst the ruins of his own once-formidable dignity.
A few days later, Aschenbach goes to the lobby in his hotel, feeling ill and weak, and discovers that the Polish family plan to leave after lunch. He goes down to the beach to his usual deck chair. Tadzio is there, unsupervised for once, and accompanied by an older boy, Jasiu. A fight breaks out between the two boys, and Tadzio is quickly bested; afterward, he angrily leaves his companion and wades over to Aschenbach's part of the beach, where he stands for a moment looking out to sea; then turns halfway around to look at his admirer. To Aschenbach, it is as if the boy is beckoning to him: he tries to rise and follow, only to collapse sideways into his chair.
His body is discovered a few minutes later.
Origins
Mann's original intention was to write about "passion as confusion and degradation", after having been fascinated by the true story of GoetheJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
's love for 18-year-old Baroness
Baroness
Baroness is the female equivalent of the nobility title Baron.Baroness or The Baroness may also refer to:* Baroness , a metal band from Savannah, Georgia* Baroness , a fictional villain in the G.I...
Ulrike von Levetzow
Ulrike von Levetzow
Ulrike von Levetzow, known as Ulrike Levetzow, Baroness von Levetzow was a friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. She met him at Marienbad and Karlsbad in 1822 and 1823, when she was 18 and he was 73...
, which had led Goethe to write his Marienbad Elegy
Marienbad Elegy
The Marienbad Elegy is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.This poem, considered one of Goethe's finest and most personal, reflects the devastating sadness the poet felt when Baroness Ulrike von Levetzow declined his proposal...
. The May 1911 death of Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
in Vienna and Mann's interest in the boy Władzio during summer vacation in Venice (more below) were additional experiences occupying his thoughts. He used the story to illuminate certain convictions about the relationship between life and mind, with Gustav representing the intellectual. Mann was also influenced by Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
and his views on dreams, as well as by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
. He had visited Venice several times.
Left: First print 1912.
Allusions
The novella is rife with allusions from antiquity forward, especially to Greek antiquity and to German works (literary, art-historical, musical, visual) from the eighteenth century on.One important framework of references points to Greek mythology; Aschenbach's Venice seems populated by the gods. By dedicating himself to Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
, whom Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy took to represent restraint, form and the intellect, Aschenbach has denied the power of Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
, Nietzsche's god of unreason and of passion – a voluntary act of what Freud would call "suppression". Dionysus seems to have followed Aschenbach to Venice with the intent of destroying him: the red-haired man who keeps crossing von Aschenbach's path, in the guise of different characters, could be a figure of Silenus
Silenus
In Greek mythology, Silenus was a companion and tutor to the wine god Dionysus.-Evolution of the character:The original Silenus resembled a folklore man of the forest with the ears of a horse and sometimes also the tail and legs of a horse...
, Dionysus's mythological chief disciple. In the Benjamin Britten opera
Death in Venice (opera)
Death in Venice is an opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten, his last. The opera is based on the novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. Myfanwy Piper wrote the English libretto. It was first performed at Snape Maltings near Aldeburgh, England on 16 June 1973.The astringent score is marked by some...
these characters (the traveller, the gondolier, the leading player and the voice of Dionysus) are played by the same baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
singer, who also plays the hotel manager, the barber and the old man on the Vaporetto. The trope of placing classical deities in contemporary settings was popular at the time when Mann was writing Death in Venice: in England, at almost the same time, E. M. Forster
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
was at work on an entire short-story collection based on this premise. The idea of the opposition of the Apollonian and Dionysian was first proposed by Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
in The Birth of Tragedy
The Birth of Tragedy
The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music is a 19th-century work of dramatic theory by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It was reissued in 1886 as The Birth of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism ...
and was also a popular motif of the time.
Aschenbach's name and character may be inspired by the homosexual German poet August von Platen-Hallermünde, whose poems about Venice are alluded to in the novella and who, like Aschenbach, dies of the cholera on an Italian island. The character's first name is virtually an anagram of August. The character's last name may be derived from von Platen's birthplace, Ansbach
Ansbach
Ansbach, originally Onolzbach, is a town in Bavaria, Germany. It is the capital of the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Ansbach is situated southwest of Nuremberg and north of Munich, on the Fränkische Rezat, a tributary of the Main river. As of 2004, its population was 40,723.Ansbach...
. However, it has another clear significance: Aschenbach literally means "ash brook". The novella's physical description of Aschenbach was based on a photograph of the composer Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
. Mahler had made a strong personal impression on Mann when they met in Munich and Mann was shocked by the news of Mahler's death in Vienna. Mann applied Mahler's first name and facial appearance to Aschenbach but did not talk about it in public. (The soundtrack of the film
Death in Venice (film)
Death in Venice is a 1971 film directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Dirk Bogarde and Björn Andrésen. The film is based on the novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann.-Plot:...
based on the novella made use of Mahler's compositions, particularly the "Adagietto" 4th movement from the Symphony No. 5
Symphony No. 5 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor by Gustav Mahler was composed in 1901 and 1902, mostly during the summer months at Mahler's cottage at Maiernigg. Among its most distinctive features are the funereal trumpet solo that opens the work and the frequently performed Adagietto.The musical canvas and...
).
The real Tadzio
Thomas Mann's wife Katia (in 1974 book) recalls that the idea for the story came during an actual holiday in Venice (staying at the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido), which she and Thomas took in the summer of 1911:- 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!"
The boy who inspired "Tadzio" was Baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
Władysław Moes, whose first name was usually shortened as Władzio or just Adzio. This story was uncovered by Thomas Mann's translator, Andrzej Dołęgowski, around 1964, and was published in the German press in 1965. Some sources report that Moes himself did not learn of the connection until he saw the 1971 film version of the novel.
Władysław Moes was born on 17 November 1900 in Wierbka
Wierbka
Wierbka is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Pilica, within Zawiercie County, Silesian Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately east of Pilica, east of Zawiercie, and north-east of the regional capital Katowice.-References:...
, the second son and fourth child of Baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
Alexander Julius Moes. He was aged 11 when he was in Venice, significantly younger than Tadzio in the novella. Baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
Moes died on 17 December 1986 in Warshaw and is interred at the Powązki Cemetery
Powazki Cemetery
Powązki Cemetery , also known as the Stare Powązki is a historic cemetery located in the Wola district, western part of Warsaw, Poland. It is the most famous cemetery in the city, and one of the oldest...
in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
. He was the subject of a biography, The Real Tadzio (Short Books, 2001) by Gilbert Adair
Gilbert Adair
Gilbert Adair is a Scottish author, film critic and journalist. He won the Author's Club First Novel Award in 1988 for his novel The Holy Innocents. In 1995 he won the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize for his book A Void, which is a translation of the French book La Disparition by Georges Perec...
.
Translations
The novella was probably first published in English in periodical form in The Dial in 1924 over three issues (vol. LXXVI, March to May, issues # 3-5, Camden, NJ), as per an advertisement by Peter Ellis (Bookseller, London, UK) for sale of a copy of those issues (www.abebooks.com, viewed 2 Feb 2011).It was first published in book form in English in 1925 as Death in Venice and Other Stories, translated by Kenneth Burke
Kenneth Burke
Kenneth Duva Burke was a major American literary theorist and philosopher. Burke's primary interests were in rhetoric and aesthetics.-Personal history:...
. W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
called it the definitive translation.
A new translation was published in 2005 by Michael Henry Heim
Michael Henry Heim
Michael Henry Heim is a Professor of Slavic Languages, at the University California at Los Angeles . He received his doctorate at Harvard in 1971...
which won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Prize.
Adaptations
- A film of Death in VeniceDeath in Venice (film)Death in Venice is a 1971 film directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Dirk Bogarde and Björn Andrésen. The film is based on the novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann.-Plot:...
starring Dirk BogardeDirk BogardeSir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death in Venice...
was made by Luchino ViscontiLuchino ViscontiLuchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...
in 1971. - Benjamin BrittenBenjamin BrittenEdward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
transformed Death in VeniceDeath in Venice (opera)Death in Venice is an opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten, his last. The opera is based on the novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. Myfanwy Piper wrote the English libretto. It was first performed at Snape Maltings near Aldeburgh, England on 16 June 1973.The astringent score is marked by some...
into an opera, his last, in 1973. - The novella was also dramatised by Peter Wolf for BBC Radio 3BBC Radio 3BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
in 1997. - It was made into a ballet by John NeumeierJohn NeumeierJohn Neumeier is a well-known American ballet dancer, choreographer, and director. He has been the director and chief choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet since 1973. 5 years later he founded the Hamburg Ballet School, which also includes a boarding school...
for his Hamburg BalletHamburg BalletHamburg Ballet, also known as the Hamburg State Opera Ballet, is an internationally acclaimed ballet company located in Hamburg, Germany. Since 1973 it is directed by the American dancer and choreographer John Neumeier....
company in December 2003.
See also
- Love and Death on Long IslandLove and Death on Long IslandLove and Death on Long Island is a 1997 UK / Canadian film directed by Richard Kwietniowski and starring Jason Priestley, John Hurt, Fiona Loewi, Sheila Hancock and Anne Reid....
- "Grey Gardens", song on Rufus WainwrightRufus WainwrightRufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. He has recorded six albums of original music, EPs, and tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.-Early years:...
's 2001 album Poses - "I Just Want To See The Boy Happy", on MorrisseyMorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey , known as Morrissey, is an English singer and lyricist. He rose to prominence in the 1980s as the lyricist and vocalist of the alternative rock band The Smiths. The band was highly successful in the United Kingdom but broke up in 1987, and Morrissey began a solo career,...
's 2006 album Ringleader Of The TormentorsRingleader of the Tormentors-The Band:* Morrissey – vocals* Alain Whyte – guitars and backing vocals* Boz Boorer – guitars* Jesse Tobias – guitars* Gary Day – bass guitar* Matt Chamberlain – drums* Michael Farrell – piano, organ, keyboards, trumpet, trombone and percussion... - "Death in Venice" is the name of a cocktail invented by the British travel writer Robin SaikiaRobin SaikiaRobin Saikia is a British author and actor educated at Winchester College and Merton College, Oxford.-Books:Robin Saikia wrote The Venice Lido, the first ever full-length historical and cultural guide to Venice's glamorous beach resort, from its early days as a primitive settlement until its heyday...
, author of The Venice Lido. The cocktail, available at the Grand Hotel Excelsior on the Lido, is a strawberry-based vodka martini. The strawberries allude to Von Aschenbach's fatal snack and the recommended Ciroc vodka refers to the Saharan wind that ravages the Mediterranean and is mentioned in Mann's novella. - 'Gannymede', a short story by Daphne Du MaurierDaphne du MaurierDame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...
, about an Englishman's longing for a young boy in Venice, with tragic consequences.
External links
— German languageGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
version.
- Death in Venice in original German with English Translation
- Online English translation of Death in Venice
- Michael Chanan, Mahler in Venice?
- "Oh Boy. Tadzio, Adzio, and the secret history of Death in Venice" by Allen Barra. December 3–9, 2003
- Picture of real Tadzio and of a 1965 German press article
- 'Tadzio' in 1964