Literaturgeschichtlich ist Der Tod in Venedig, entstanden am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkriegs, zugleich Höhe- und Endpunkt der Décadence-Literatur des zu Ende gegangenen 19. Jahrhunderts. Der Zauberberg (1924) zählt nicht mehr dazu. Er bildet den Übergang zur zweiten Hälfte seines Lebenswerkes. [8] In dem Sanatoriumsroman verabschiedet sich Thomas Mann von der „Sympathie mit dem Tode“. [9]

Letter to Carl Maria Weber dated July 4, 1920. In: Thomas Mann: Briefe I: 1889–1936, ed. Erika Mann. Fischer 1979. p. 176f. Biografische Bezüge Bearbeiten Das Grand Hotel des Bains war Aufenthaltsort Manns und diente auch für die Verfilmung als Drehort Władysław „Adzio“ Moes (hinten, Mitte) soll nach eigenen Angaben das Vorbild für „Tadzio“ gewesen sein (Venedig, 1911)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. Die mögliche Begegnung mit dem jungen polnischen Baron Władysław Moes (1900–1986) bei seinem Aufenthalt 1911 soll dann den Anstoß zu Der Tod in Venedig gegeben haben. [15] Dieser behauptete 1965 in der Zeitschrift twen (München): Ich war Thomas Manns Tadzio. Er vermutete dies hauptsächlich wegen seiner polnischen Herkunft und dem Spitznamen Adzio, den er als Kind getragen haben soll. [16] Jüngere Forschungsergebnisse bezweifeln diese Annahme insbesondere wegen des Fehlens weiterer passender Anknüpfungspunkte bzw. Widersprüchen. [17] The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous author in his early 50s who recently has been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement (thus acquiring the aristocratic " von" in 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. My biggest problem with the above is that understood it without feeling it. I would spot an allusion that Mann was incorporating and think how impressive it was…but it never translated into an emotional connection to the story. Thus, I was kept at a distance from the story, and this left me feeling less enamored with the work as a whole, than its prodigious technical achievements might otherwise merit.

But one can only follow such reasoning if you can agree that a passion that seems so distant, unrealistic and physical can be ennobling and can be described as "love". Eine Cholera-Epidemie, von Indien kommend, hat Venedig erreicht. Mehrere Versuche, sich bei Einheimischen über die Seuche zu informieren, schlagen fehl. Auch der diabolische Anführer einer kleinen Bande von Straßenmusikanten, die im Freien und zu später Stunde vor den Hotelgästen auftritt, gibt Aschenbach keine Auskunft. Die örtlichen Behörden wollen einen internationalen Aufruhr vermeiden. Anderntags klärt ihn schließlich der Angestellte eines englischen Reisebüros über die Choleragefahr auf. Trotzdem bleibt Aschenbach in der Lagunenstadt. Der von seinem späten Gefühlsrausch „Heimgesuchte“ verwirft den Gedanken, Tadzios Angehörige vor der Cholera zu warnen, um dessen Nähe nicht entbehren zu müssen. [2]Aschenbach's name and character may be inspired by the homosexual German poet August von Platen-Hallermünde. There are allusions to his poems about Venice in the novella, and like Aschenbach, he died of cholera on an Italian island. Aschenbach's first name is almost an anagram of August, and the character's last name may be derived from Ansbach, Platen's birthplace. However, the name has another clear significance: Aschenbach literally means "ash brook". It "suggests dead ashes ( Aschen) clogging the stream ( Bach) of life". [4] he believed that his eyes gazed upon beauty itself, form as divine thought, the sole and pure perfection that dwells in the mind and whose human likeness and representation, lithe and lovely, was here displayed for veneration. This was intoxication, and the aging artist welcomed it unquestioningly, indeed, avidly. His mind was in a whirl, his cultural convictions in ferment; his memory cast up ancient thoughts passed on to him in his youth though never yet animated by his own fire. Was it not common knowledge that the sun diverts our attention from the intellectual to the sensual? It benumbs and bewitches both reason and memory such that the soul in its elation quite forgets its true nature and clings with rapt delight to the fairest of sundrenched objects, nay, only with the aid of the corporeal can it ascend to more lofty considerations. Cupid truly did as mathematicians do when they show concrete images of pure forms to incompetent pupils: he made the mental visible to us by using the shape and coloration of human youths and turned them into memory's tool by adorning them with all the luster of beauty and kindling pain and hope in us at the sight of them...