Aschenbach is captivated by Tadzio's beauty and becomes obsessed with the boy but convinces himself his interest is strictly of an aesthetic nature.ĭrawing on his belief that his artistic inspiration was profoundly intertwined with his homosexual desires, Mann articulates in Death in Venice the struggle Aschenbach experiences when faced with the beauty of Tadzio, who seems to be enticing him to relinquish his identity as an artist. In the novella, Mann transformed Mahler into his protagonist, writer Gustav von Aschenbach, and Goethe's desire for the young woman became Aschenbach's passion for a 14-year-old Polish boy named Tadzio.Īschenbach first sights Tadzio in the dining room of his Venetian hotel, in much the same way Mann saw "his" Polish boy. These three matters coalesced in Death in Venice. While in Venice, Mann became fascinated by a young Polish boy he observed in the hotel where he and his family were staying, and also with the recent death of composer Gustav Mahler. For some time prior to this, according to a letter he wrote at the time, he had wished to write a story about "passion as confusion and degradation" based on the true story of German writer Johann Goethe's love for an 18-year-old baroness. The novella had its origins in a visit Mann made with his wife and children to Venice in 1911.
Death in Venice - the novella written by Thomas Mann and published in 1912 - is perhaps the author's best-known work, not least because it was made into a film by the great Italian director Luchino Visconti in 1971. Which is better - the book or the film? That question is often debated when a much-loved book is turned into a movie.
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