Death In Venice Quotes

• Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.

  Thomas Mann

  Solitude, Originality, Absurd

  Thomas Mann, Stanley Appelbaum (1995). “Death in Venice”, p.19, Courier Corporation

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

  William Shakespeare

  Revenge, Venice, Laughing

  'The Merchant of Venice' (1596-8) act 3, sc. 1, l. 63

  75 Copy quote

  Show source

• The weakest kind of fruit drops earliest to the ground.

  William Shakespeare

  Venice, Fruit, Kind

  'The Merchant of Venice' (1596-8) act 4, sc. 1, l. 114

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand.

  Lord Byron

  Hands, Bridges, Venice

  Childe Harold's Pilgrimage canto 4, st. 1 (1818)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand; I saw from out the wave of her structure's rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble pines, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.

  Lord Byron

  Land, Bridges, Wings

  Lord Byron (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Lord Byron (Illustrated)”, p.264, Delphi Classics

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mann's Death in Venice actually contains a snippet of philosophy about the second question, when Aschenbach, collapsed in the plaza, engages in his quasi-Socratic, anti-Socratic, ruminations.

  Philip Kitcher

  Philosophy, Venice, Rumination

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Part of my methodological approach is made explicit when I discuss ways in which literature can have philosophical significance. Literature doesn't typically argue - and when it does, it's deadly dull. But literature can supply the frame within which we come to observe and reason, or it can change our frame in highly significant ways. That's one of the achievements I'd claim for Mann, and for Death in Venice.

  Philip Kitcher

  Philosophical, Venice, Achievement

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I intend Deaths in Venice to contribute both to literary criticism and to philosophy. But it's not "strict philosophy" in the sense of arguing for specific theses. As I remark, there's a style of philosophy - present in writers from Plato to Rawls - that invites readers to consider a certain class of phenomena in a new way. In the book, I associate this, in particular, with my good friend, the eminent philosopher of science, Nancy Cartwright, who practices it extremely skilfully.

  Philip Kitcher

  Plato, Philosophy, Book

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• First, my frame of reference for the Britten opera shifted. I'd always thought of Britten's approach in Death in Venice as another exploration of the plight of the individual whose aspirations are at odds with those of the surrounding community: his last opera returning to the themes of Peter Grimes. As I read and listened and thought, however, Billy Budd came to seem a more appropriate foil for Death in Venice.

  Philip Kitcher

  Odds, Venice, Community

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• As I read Mann in German for the first time, the full achievement - both literary and philosophical - of Death in Venice struck me forcefully, so that, when I was invited to give the Schoff Lectures at Columbia, the opportunity to reflect on the contrasts between novella and opera seemed irresistible.

  Philip Kitcher

  Philosophical, Opportunity, Venice

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To my mind, Death in Venice represents an enormous advance in Mann's literary development, not simply for the commonly appreciated reason that he crafted a superbly supple and elegant style, apparently well suited to the kind of prose Aschenbach is supposed to write.

  Philip Kitcher

  Writing, Venice, Style

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source