Three Perspectives on Venice
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
VOLUME 8 NO.9 SEPTEMBER 2008 journal diu^ Association of Jewish Refugees Three perspectives on Venice nee did she hold the works of art that achieve a Classical gorgeous East in fee;/And perfection of form, a formal symmetry >,i was the safeguard of the and beauty that carry the edifying 0 West: the worth/ Of Ven appearance of purity, nobility and ice did not fall below her birth,/ harmony, thus seemingly exerting a Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.' morally elevating effect on his So begins Wordsworth's poem 'On readers; extracts from his later works the Extinction of the Venetian Repub are duly reprinted in school textbooks, lic' (1802), written in reaction to the a bitter irony in view of the tmths Napoleonic occupation which in 1797 revealed in the course of the novella. had marked the end of the proud For the impact of pure beauty is city's independence. Wordsworth's not moral at all. Formal beauty is lament for the fall of 'La Serenissima' conveyed to us through our senses: St Mark's Square, Venice recalled the city's dominance over the its appeal is sensuous and its effect trade routes to the East on which its fabled collection of sonnets, the Sonette aus aesthetic; it cannot be judged by moral wealth and power were founded. He also Venedig, by the homosexual poet August criteria or pressed into the service of moral used the 'democratic' elements in the Graf von Platen (1796-1835), who visited the values. Aschenbach's ideal of art is therefore Venetian constitution - the Doge owed his city in 1824. at best morally neutral; it can easily lurch office as head of state to election, not royal The subject of Death in Venice is art - into moral ambivalence or even downright birth, and his powers were constrained by art and its striving after beauty, both seen immorality. Aschenbach begins by deluding the city's central body of govemment, the as deeply ambiguous and double-edged himself into believing that he is admiring Signoria - to depict Venice as a freedom- phenomena. For when the writer Gustav von Tadzio disinterestedly, purely as an loving victim of Bonapartist tyranny, and Aschenbach encounters the beautiful Polish exemplar of formal beauty; he ends by thus as an example to Britons fighting to boy Tadzio at the Hotel des Bains on following him through the litter-strevra, fly preserve their freedoms from the French. Venice's Lido and falls prey to a homosexual blown, disease-ridden alleyways of Venice The British have been captivated by infatuation that lays low all his powers of in a degrading state of voyeuristic sexual Venice - from Tumer, Browning and Ruskin resistance, moral and ultimately physical, obsession. to John Julius Norwich and Jan Morris - and he is also encountering, incorporated in Setting the tale of Aschenbach's down so have the Germans, who have tended to human form, the ideal of perfect formal fall in Venice is Mann's masterstroke. For associate the city with concepts of art, beauty that he has been struggling to Venice is renowned for its beauty, but also beauty and perfection of form. Goethe recreate as an artist in his works. In other for the corruption that lurks beneath its visited Venice during his Italian journey words, it is perfect beauty of form that surface. The magnificent fagade that the (1786-88), the model for the many voyages destroys Aschenbach; it is art that kills him, city presents to those who approach it by of discovery made by German writers and not the cholera epidemic that stmck Venice sea is deceptive, its seemingly uplifting artists seeking inspiration from the Classical in 1911. nobility of aspect conceaUng a hinterland culture and civilisation of the Mediterranean The opposition of art to life is the central of decaying buildings and cutthroat South; Wagner, who died in the Palazzo theme mnning through Mann's early works, commercialism, as well as a longstanding Vendramin overlooking the Grand Canal, where 'healthy' life and conventional reputation for libertinism and sexual loved and was inspired by Venice. morality are contrasted with art, crime, licence. In the novella, this element of The most famous evocation of Venice in disease, immorality, perversion and death, hidden corruption is epitomised by the German literature is, of course, Thomas all seen as 'unhealthy' aberrations from the cholera that is breeding unseen in the Mann's novella Der Tod in Venedig {Death path of solid bourgeois normality. stagnant waters of Venice's canals, a lethal in Venice) (1912), widely known through Aschenbach had in his younger days menace tainting the very heart of its Luchino Visconti's 1971 film, starring Dirk indulged in the moral relativism typical of diseased beauty, and the worse for the fact Bogarde. Mann drew on his own visit to 'decadent' writers of the fin-de-siecle, with that the municipal authorities are covering Venice in 1911, but could also build on an its potential for undermining established the epidemic up to protect their tourist trade. established tradition of German writing moral values. To escape this risk of Aschenbach senses a complicity in crime. about Venice, notably the finely crafted immorality, he aspires in later years to create continued overleaf AJR JOURNAL SEPTEMBER 2008 THREE PERSPECTIVES ON VENICE continued from page 1 recognising that the city's guilty seaet makes 5,000 in the mid-seventeenth century, the it the appropriate backdrop for the illicit ghetto expanded from the original 'ghetto passion to which he has himself succumbed. nuovo' ('new ghetto') to the confusingly Maim memorably describes Venice as the named 'ghetto vecchio' ('old ghetto', though 'flattering and suspect beauty' ('die dating only from 1541). schmeichlerische und verdachtige Schone'), Venice's association with antisemitic as a city 'half fairytale, half tourist trap'. He attitudes and prejudices is reinforced by the also highlights the Byzantine influence on most celebrated work of fiction to which it its architecture, which he uses to character gave rise, Shakespeare's The Merchant of ise the city as one of the ports where the Venice. The figure of Shylock - model for East gained entry to Westem Europe. Apart so many antisemitic caricatures - and the from evoking Venice's history of relations raw antisemitism expressed by the play's with the East, this also refers to the route Christian characters, remain deeply Bettine Le Beau, pictured here with taken by the cholera epidemic, which spread problematical, even disturbing, for Jews fellow actor Robert Rietti, was a guest speaker at the annual show- from its sources in the Ganges delta in India seeing or reading the play. For all the business charity event organised for via the trade routes of Asia to the coastal evidence in the play that Shylock is what a fans of The Prisoner, the 1960s cities of the Mediterranean. hostile gentile environment has made him, science fiction TV series starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan. But this incursion of the East into the for all the eloquence of his plea for Jews as Bettine appeared in three episodes settled realm of Westem civilisation also has human beings - 'If you prick us do we not of the cult series playing Lucette. At the event, which took place in a mythical dimension: the tigers that bleed?' - there remains in him, the Jew, an Portmeirion, Bettine was invited to Aschenbach imagines lurking in the apparently irreducible core of villainy. speak about her experiences and sign miasmic undergrowth of the delta swamps Readers of this joumal may be interested photos for the fans. are also the tigers that drew the chariot of to know that two Jewish scholars who had Dionysos, god of wine and intoxication, on fled to Britain from Germany after 1933 mi AND [VENH DIARr - SEPTEMBER his path from India to Greece. Dionysos, produced memorable studies of Shylock however, represents the elemental, irrational, after the war. One was the drama critic Mon 8 Dr Fred Rosner 'Busybodies and Champion Schnorrers: From instinctive forces in human nature that can Hermann Sinsheimer, who had made his Josephus and Jud Siiss to Bruno empt, as they do in Aschenbach's case, over name in pre-Hitler Berlin. The other was Kreisky and Lord Levy' Club 43 whelming the rationality and disciplined Rabbi Ignaz Maybaum, who took Shylock's Wed 10 Dr Frank Beck 'Kindertransport moral order of Westem civilisation; art, too, unwavering confidence in the sanctity of a from Vienna to London and Minehead for all its ordered beauty, originates in the legally binding contract - the contract in 1939' Memorial Hall, Wincanton, deeper, chaotic well-springs of inspiration guaranteeing him his pound of flesh, should Somerset, 7.00 pm. Talk sponsored by Wincanton and District Museum and and intuition. The cholera finds its way to his loan not be repaid - as the basis for his History Society. Contact Derek Hudson Venice, as the tigers of Dionysos find their arresting characterisation of Shylock as 'the on 01963 31663 or at way to Aschenbach. tragic champion of the law'. [email protected] By the Second World War, the Jewish Sun 14 Join the party at the third Jewish links with Venice community in Venice had greatly declined annual Simcha on the Square 2008. The Jewish perspective on Venice is very in numbers. Following the surrender of Italy Trafalgar Square, London, 1-7 pm. Contact Geraldine Auerbach MBE, different. For Jews, Venice carries strong to the Allies in September 1943, the Germans Director, Jewish Music Institute, or Di negative associations of stigmatisation and occupied Venice and deported some 200 Robson on 020 8909 2445 or at marginalisation alongside its aura of beauty.