Death in Venice

“Overwrought by the trying and precarious work of the forenoon—which had demanded a maximum wariness, prudence, penetration, and rigour of the will—the writer had not been able even after the noon meal to break the impetus of the productive mechanism within him, that motus animi continuous which constitutes, according to Cicero, the foundation of eloquence; and he had not attained the healing sleep which—what with the increasing exhaustion of his strength—he needed in the middle of each day.”

In this quote, Aschenbach’s work and schedule are described in a lengthy sentence with many subclauses. The complexity of this sentence echoes the reported technical sophistication of Aschenbach’s writing, as well as his involved and meticulously planned daily schedule. The classical reference to Roman statesman Cicero (On Duties) highlights the importance of Classical influences on Aschenbach’s life and work.

“Thus—and perhaps his elevated position helped to give the impression—his bearing had something majestic and commanding about it, something bold, or even savage. For whether he was grimacing because he was blinded by the setting sun, or whether it was a case of a permanent distortion of the physiognomy, his lips seemed too short, they were so completely pulled back from his teeth that these were exposed even to the gums, and stood out white and long.”

The detailed description of the stranger’s appearance paints a clear and vivid picture for the reader, while the man’s dominating and intimidating aura creates an ominous and expectant mood. Aschenbach’s association of the man’s appearance with evocative emotional judgments “majestic”, “savage” etc. shows how susceptible his imagination is to the effects of an individual’s appearance—establishing a trait that later proves key to the plot, and foreshadowing the danger posed by Tadzio’s beauty.

“He saw a landscape, a tropical swampland under a heavy, murky sky, damp, luxuriant, and enormous, a kind of prehistoric wilderness of islands, bogs, and arms of water, sluggish with mud; he saw, near him and in the distance, the hairy shafts of palms rising out of a rank lecherous thicket, out of places where the plant-life was fat, swollen, and blossoming exorbitantly; he saw strangely misshapen trees sending their roots into the ground, into stagnant pools with greenish reflections; and here, between floating flowers which were milk-white and large as dishes, birds of a strange nature, high-shouldered, with crooked bills, were standing in the muck, and looking motionlessly to one side; between dense, knotted stalks of bamboo he saw the glint from the eyes of a crouching tiger—and he felt his heart knocking with fear and with puzzling desires.”

Mann provides a detailed and highly sensory description of the foreign vistas evoked by Aschenbach’s sudden wanderlust. Elements of the landscape are listed in turn so that each subclause builds on the previous to construct a complex and multifaceted picture. The highly exoticized description, whose foreignness is emphasized through vocabulary such as “puzzling,” “strange,” etc., contrasts with the mundane