About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherColumbia University Press

ISBN-100231162642

ISBN-139780231162647

eBay Product ID (ePID)118835248

Product Key Features

Number of Pages280 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication NameDeaths in Venice : the Cases of Gustav Von Aschenbach

SubjectEuropean / German, European / General, Genres & Styles / Opera, Aesthetics, Subjects & Themes / General

Publication Year2013

TypeTextbook

Subject AreaMusic, Literary Criticism, Philosophy

AuthorPhilip Kitcher

SeriesLeonard Hastings Schoff Lectures

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.1 in

Item Weight18.6 Oz

Item Length0.9 in

Item Width0.6 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

ReviewsDeaths in Venice is a thorough discussion of the possible relation of literature, and art in general, to philosophical thinking. It is this double intensity of perspectives--a double intensity that is never sacrificed in the one or the other direction--that makes reading the book a unique experience., Philip Kitcher's Deaths in Venice is an intimate study on Thomas Mann, 'the man and his work' as the formula has been in classical literary criticism. At the same time, however, it is a thorough discussion of the possible relation of literature, and art in general, to philosophical thinking. It is this double intensity of perspectives -- a double intensity that is never sacrificed in the one or the other direction -- which makes reading Deaths in Venice a unique experience., Unusually rich, rewarding, and astounding in its range, Deaths in Venice asks important philosophical questions -- about art's demands on its practitioners, its connections to the rest of life, and the possibility of endowing our short, evanescent lives with some lasting significance. More than reaching conclusions, these works provide beginnings: examples of new human possibilities that are not to be imitated but transcended -- and that, in large part, is how the book itself proceeds. This is much more than a work on the philosophy of art: it does philosophy with art., [An] outstanding, intellectually agile book, which sheds so much fresh light on Mann's work and on the philosophical questions that it explores., Original and thought provoking.... [ Deaths in Venice ] is a delight to read, and Kitcher's deep commitment to humanism and his passion for art radiate contagiously from every page., Unusually rich, rewarding, and astounding in its range, Deaths in Venice asks important philosophical questions-about art's demands on its practitioners, its connections to the rest of life, and the possibility of endowing our short, evanescent lives with some lasting significance. More than reaching conclusions, these works provide beginnings: examples of new human possibilities that are not to be imitated but transcended-and that, in large part, is how the book itself proceeds. This is much more than a work on the philosophy of art: it does philosophy with art., Deaths in Venice is a thorough discussion of the possible relation of literature, and art in general, to philosophical thinking. It is this double intensity of perspectives -- a double intensity that is never sacrificed in the one or the other direction -- that makes reading the book a unique experience., Deaths in Venice is a thorough discussion of the possible relation of literature, and art in general, to philosophical thinking. It is this double intensity of perspectives-a double intensity that is never sacrificed in the one or the other direction-that makes reading the book a unique experience., Unusually rich, rewarding, and astounding in its range, Deaths in Venice asks important philosophical questions--about art's demands on its practitioners, its connections to the rest of life, and the possibility of endowing our short, evanescent lives with some lasting significance. More than reaching conclusions, these works provide beginnings: examples of new human possibilities that are not to be imitated but transcended--and that, in large part, is how the book itself proceeds. This is much more than a work on the philosophy of art: it does philosophy with art., Deaths in Venice is to the twenty-first century what Nietzsche's literary and musical criticism was to the nineteenth: a philosopher's profound, shrewd, learned, sharp-eyed, and humane interpretation of art, which is also a profound interpretation of daily life. Starting from the doomed, lonely passion of Thomas Mann's Aschenbach, Philip Kitcher explores three millennia of thinking and the hidden mysteries of the individual mind as it confronts itself, its neighbors, and the universe., Philip Kitcher's book is a profession of love: for Mann's novella, for Mahler's music, and for the commitment to ideas and reflections on life that a certain current of German culture represented in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One senses that Kitcher has so completely immersed himself in the works of Mann, Mahler's music, their biographies, and to an extent the works by Britten and Visconti, that he speaks from within these works and lives., Philip Kitcher's short book on "Deaths in Venice" is a profession of love: for Thomas Mann's novella, for Mahler's music, and above all for the commitment to ideas and reflections on life that a certain current of German culture represented in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One senses that Kitcher has so completely immersed himself in the works of Thomas Mann, in Mahler's music, in their biographies, and to an extent in the eponymous works by Britten and Visconti, that he speaks from within these works and lives., ...[An] outstanding, intellectually agile book, which sheds so much fresh light on Mann's work and on the philosophical questions that it explores., Unusually rich, rewarding, and astounding in its range, Deaths in Venice asks im-portant philosophical questions -- about art's demands on its practitioners, its con-nections to the rest of life, and the possibility of endowing our short, evanescent lives with some lasting significance -- through Thomas Mann's great novella, its variations in opera and film, and the music of Gustav Mahler. More than reaching conclusions, these works provide beginnings: examples of new human possibilities that are not to be imitated but transcended -- and that, in large part, is how the book itself proceeds. This is much more that a work on the philosophy of art: in Deaths in Venice , Philip Kitcher does philosophy with art.

Dewey Edition23

Grade FromCollege Graduate Student

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal833.912

Table Of ContentList of Illustrations Preface List of Abbreviations A Note on Translations 1. Discipline 2. Beauty 3. Shadows Notes Index

SynopsisDiving into the philosophical depths of Thomas Mann's beloved novella, as imagined in words, music, and film., Published in 1913, Thomas Mann's Death in Venic e is one of the most widely read novellas in any language. In the 1970s, Benjamin Britten adapted it into an opera, and Luchino Visconti turned it into a successful film. Reading these works from a philosophical perspective, Philip Kitcher connects the predicament of the novella's central character to Western thought's most compelling questions. In Mann's story, the author Gustav von Aschenbach becomes captivated by an adolescent boy, first seen on the lido in Venice, the eventual site of Aschenbach's own death. Mann works through central concerns about how to live, explored with equal intensity by his German predecessors, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Kitcher considers how Mann's, Britten's, and Visconti's treatments illuminate the tension between social and ethical values and an artist's sensitivity to beauty. Each work asks whether a life devoted to self-sacrifice in the pursuit of lasting achievements can be sustained and whether the breakdown of discipline undercuts its worth. Haunted by the prospect of his death, Aschenbach also helps us reflect on whether it is possible to achieve anything in full awareness of our finitude and in knowing our successes are always incomplete.

LC Classification NumberPT2625.A44T6438 2013