Death in Venice

The world-famous masterpiece by Nobel laureate Thomas Mann -- here in a new translation by Michael Henry Heim. Published on the eve of World War I, a decade after Buddenbrooks had established Thomas Mann as a literary celebrity, Death in Venice tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, a successful but aging writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfillment that instead leads to his erotic doom. In the decaying city, besieged by an unnamed epidemic, he becomes obsessed with an exquisite Polish boy, Tadzio. "It is a story of the voluptuousness of doom," Mann wrote. "But the problem I had especially in mind was that of the artist's dignity."

this Critical Edition Of Mann's 1912 Modernist Novella Reprints The Widely Praised Translation By David Luke. Accompanying This Text, Five Critical Essays Examine The Work From Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives:
Psychoanalytic Criticism, By Rodney Symington
Reader-response Criticism, By Lilian Furst
Cultural Criticism, By John Burt Foster, Jr.
Gender Criticism, By Robert Tobin
New History, By Russell Berman

A Succinct Introduction To The History, Principles, And Practice Of Each Critical Approach Precedes Each Essay. Readers May Also Benefit From Extensive Bibliographies Following The Essays And A Glossary Of Critical And Theoretical Terms.

The Editor's Introduction To The Book Discusses Biographical And Historical Contexts For Both Mann And His Text. Her Survey Of Critical Responses To It Starts In 1912 And Ends In 1998.

kirkus Reviews

new Versions Of 12 Celebrated Stories, Including The Famous Title Novella, Many Previously Collected In Mann's Seminal Stories Of Three Decades. Neugroschel's Persuasive Preface Makes A Strong Case For Fresh Translations, Given Both This Century's Inevitable Linguistic Shifts And Mann's Employment Within Individual Works Of Specific Vocabularies And Styles (e.g., Those Of Wagnerian Opera In The Hair-raising The Blood Of The Walsungs). And Neugrschel Essentially Finesses The Issue Of Revealing The Stories' Inherent Sexuality; Their Author Was, After All, A Master Of Elegant Indirection Dedicated To Muted Presentations Of Matters That Were Anathema To Both His Public And His Own Sedulously Respectable Persona. That Said, It's Wonderful To Have Vivid, Lucid English Versions Of Mann's Sophisticated Portrayals Of Sexual Obsession And Humiliation (little Herr Friedemann), Illness- As-metaphor In A Tale (tristan) That Concisely Prefigures The Magic Mountain, And The Transfiguring Intersection Of Artistic With Homosexual Passion (death In Venice, Tonio Krger). Brilliant Work, In Any Case, From One Of The Century's Great Writers.

The world-famous masterpiece by Nobel laureate Thomas Mann—here in a new translation by Michael Henry HeimPublished on the eve of World War I, a decade after Buddenbrooks had established Thomas Mann as a literary celebrity, Death in Venice tells the story of Gustave von Aschenbach, a successful but aging writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfillment that instead leads to his erotic doom. In the decaying city, besieged by an unnamed epidemic, he becomes obsessed with an exquisite Polish boy, Tadzio. “It is a story of the voluptuousness of doom,” Mann wrote. “But the problem I had especially in mind was that of the artist's dignity.” Published on the eve of World War I, a decade after Buddenbrooks had established Thomas Mann as a literary celebrity, Death in Venice tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, a successful but aging writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfillment that instead leads to his erotic doom. In the decaying city, besieged by an unnamed epidemic, he becomes obsessed with an exquisite Polish boy, Tadzio. "It is a story of the voluptuousness of doom," Mann wrote. "But the problem I had especially in mind was that of the artist#x92; s dignity." Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, Michael Henry Heim (Translator)......Page 1 Cover ......Page 2 9780060576172 0060576170 ......Page 3 Title Page......Page 7 Introduction......Page 9 Contents......Page 23 One......Page 24 Two......Page 34 Three......Page 48 Four......Page 98 Five......Page 120 Michael Heim......Page 166 Credits......Page 167 eISBN 0060729457......Page 168 About the Publisher......Page 169 Gustav Aschenbach or von Aschenbach, as he had officially been known since his fiftieth birthday, set out alone from his residence in Munich's Prinzregentenstrasse on a spring afternoon in 19..-a year that for months had shown so ominous a countenance to our continent-with the intention of taking an extended walk. "Gustav von Aschenbach, a successful but aging writer, follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fullfillment that instead leads to his erotic doom"--Jacket Title from ebook title screen (viewed on June 16, 2004).