Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

June 27, 2004

Our interest in Death in Venice is due to what it reveals about the mystery of art and the artist. It fascinates us as well because of the present interest in "desire" and because of the conflict in the story between desire and passion - and living, as Mann puts it, "like a clenched fist." Some of you will summon up the contest between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Others may be struck by the association between the artistic – aesthetic and disease, decadence, illusion, and dissolution – and (if you like) the silence of the sea.

"A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
–Thomas Mann

Portrait of Thomas Mann by photographer Carl Van Vechten

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