Camus’s plague, set in the 1940s, offers a modern and human interpretation of an age-old disease—the bubonic plague. While dead rats litter the city and people die in masses, the townspeople of Oran do not initially feel worried for their safety. They have no way of judging how grave the sickness is compared to […]
Read More →Archive for October, 2012
Boy with a thorn
Whenever I read something in Mann criticism re: the allusion to The Boy with a Thorn, this is what I immediately think of instead: Here’s Morrissey on Colbert the other night. Would you consider him Apollonian or Dionysian? (I’m only being half serious.) Of course the actual reference is to this.
Read More →Ultimate Irony
What Aschenbach as artist fails to accomplish, the fusion of Dionysian revelry with Apollinian form, Mann himself does accomplish in this novella. The passion and instinctual power the novella thematizes is held in check by the careful formal organization, the stylistic distance, the rational control of Mann’s narrator. (c) ..and much more for “Death in […]
Read More →Pederasty in Ancient Greece–It was natural back then!
I found this interesting introduction about Greek pederasty. Before tomorrow’s discussion about whether Aschenbach’s love of Tadzio is that of an artist or a pedophile, I thought it would be a good start to read about the origin of today’s so-called pedophilia/homosexuality. The video below is the story of Ganymede, who is often used as a […]
Read More →Visconti’s Mann
Because we brought up the 1971 film adaptation of Death in Venice I thought I’d post a few related bits here. First is the film’s official trailer: Next is the brief “making of” documentary: Third is a very odd set of clips from the film, all bits involving lascivious/coquettish glances exchanged with Tadzio. SPOILER: It […]
Read More →Is it OK to laugh at Ibsen?
I’ve just found an interesting article on Ibsen, and if you are interested in knowing a little more about the general opinion about him, then it is definitely worth reading it. You’re going to find references to the gender issue he deals with in some of his works. “In my review of Raison’s production of […]
Read More →Ahh…the ‘experience of the aesthetic’…
Beauty and the Beast
Thomas Mann’s protagonist, Aschenbach, is a complex character with an obsessive, artistic nature. Aschenbach has a clearly defined view of beauty and his concept is fully represented by the beauty of the boy, Tadzio: “It was the face of Eros, with the yellow gaze of Parian marble, with delicate and serious brows, the temples and […]
Read More →Ibsen and fatherhood
Our discussions of Ibsen’s use of congenital syphilis in Ghosts raises the specter of the absent father, whose sexual excesses have literally infected his family. Unlike his earlier play A Doll’s House, this play’s father figure is off stage throughout. He’s already dead before the play starts, so we’re living with his legacy, figured as […]
Read More →