Death in Venice

About this book

Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous, disciplined German writer in his fifties, worn out by years of work, takes a holiday in Venice. At his hotel on the Lido he sees a beautiful Polish boy of about fourteen, Tadzio, and falls into a silent, consuming fascination with him, which he dresses up in thoughts of Greek ideals of beauty. Although he learns that cholera is spreading secretly through the city, he cannot bring himself to leave.

Context and significance

Thomas Mann (1875–1955), who won the Nobel Prize in 1929, published the novella in 1912; it is a study of an artist's discipline breaking down before passion and death. This translation, by the American critic Kenneth Burke, appeared in 1925. Visconti filmed it in 1971 and Britten made it an opera. Compare Hesse's Steppenwolf.

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