Death in Venice
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mann's infamous novella of 1912, exploring the link between creativity and self-destruction.
Death in Venice is Thomas Mann鈥檚 most famous 鈥� and infamous - novella.
Published in 1912, it鈥檚 about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav von Aschenbach, when his supposedly objective appreciation of a young boy鈥檚 beauty becomes sexual obsession.
It explores the link between creativity and self-destruction, and by the end Aschenbach鈥檚 humiliation is complete, dying on a deckchair in the act of ogling. Aschenbach's stalking of the boy and dreaming of pederasty can appal modern readers, even more than Mann expected.
With
Karolina Watroba, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Modern Languages at All Souls College, University of Oxford
Erica Wickerson, a Former Research Fellow at St Johns College, University of Cambridge
Sean Williams, Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History at the University of Sheffield
Sean Williams' series of Radio 3's The Essay, Death in Trieste, can be found here: /programmes/m001lzd4
Last on
Featured
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Links and further reading
CONTRIBUTORS
at the University of Oxford
at the University of Cambridge
at the University of Sheffield
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READING LIST
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Alan Bance, 鈥樷�淒er Tod in Venedig鈥� and the Triadic Structure鈥� (Forum for Modern Language Studies 8, 1972)
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Jeffrey B. Berlin (ed.), Approaches to Teaching Mann鈥檚 Death in Venice and Other Short Fiction (Modern Language Association, 1992)
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Elizabeth Boa, 鈥楪lobal Intimations: Cultural Geography in Buddenbrooks, Tonio Kr枚ger, and Der Tod in Venedig鈥� (Oxford German Studies 35, 2006)
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Edward S. Brinkley, 'Fear of Form: Thomas Mann's Der Tod in Venedig' (Monatshefte 91:1, 1999)
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Inta Ezergailis (ed.), Critical Essays on Thomas Mann (G. K. Hall, 1988), especially 'The Second Author of Der Tod in Venedig' by Dorrit Cohn
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Andr茅 von Gronicka, 鈥樷�淢yth plus Psychology鈥�: a style analysis of Death in Venice鈥� (Germanic Review 31, 1956)
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Anthony Heilbut, Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature (Papermac, 1997)
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David Jackson (ed.), Taboos in German Literature (Berghahn, 1996), especially 鈥楾he Frustrated Poet: Homosexuality and Taboo in Der Tod in Venedig鈥� by T. J. Reed
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Todd Kontje, The Cambridge Introduction to Thomas Mann (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
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Thomas Mann (trans. David Luke), Death in Venice and Other Stories (Vintage Publishing, 2001)
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Thomas Mann (ed. T. J. Reed), Der Tod in Venedig (Bloomsbury, 1998)
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T. J. Reed, Death in Venice: Making and Unmaking a Master (Twayne, 1994)
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T. J. Reed, Thomas Mann: The Uses of Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1996)
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Ritchie Robertson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann (Cambridge University Press, 2001), especially 'Classicism and Its Pitfalls: Death in Venice' by Ritchie Robertson
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Heidi M. Rockwood and Robert J. R. Rockwood, 鈥楾he Psychological Reality of Myth in Der Tod in Venedig鈥� (Germanic Review 59, 1984)
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Richard Sheppard, 鈥楾onio Kr枚ger and Der Tod in Venedig: From Bourgeois Realism to Visionary Modernism鈥� (Oxford German Studies 18-19, 1989-90)
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Ellis Shookman, Thomas Mann's Death in Venice: A Novella and Its Critics (Camden House, 2003)
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RELATED LINKS
-听听-听麻豆约拍 Radio 3 The Essay 鈥� 鈥楩rom the Depths鈥� by Sean Williams, May 25th 2023
-听
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Broadcast
- Thu 15 Jun 2023 09:00麻豆约拍 Radio 4
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