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Quote by Philip Kitcher

“conclude, what Thomas Mann really wanted was a limited physical relationship with beautiful young men: the opportunity to gaze at them, an occasional touch, a restrained kiss. That isn't a surrogate for what he'd like to have if he were somehow free from social constraints. It's what the young Platen wanted, it's what he wanted - and it's what his Aschenbach wants.”

Quote by Philip Kitcher

Author

Philip Kitcher, born on February 20, 1947, is a philosopher, writer, and academic. His research interests are primarily in the fields of philosophy of science, epistemology, and moral philosophy. more

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“The classical allusions and the Platonic disquisitions on beauty are no longer a form of cover, but integral to Aschenbach's complex sexuality. Moreover, the wandering around Venice in pursuit of Tadzio isn't a prelude to some sexual contact for which Aschenbach is yearning.”

Form Complexes Sexuality Pursuit Contact Wander Yearning Venice Allusion Platonic Prelude Wandering Around

Author:Philip Kitcher

“Britten's opera tends to see things in simpler terms. It portrays an Aschenbach who wants a richer form of sexual fulfillment, and who is hemmed in by the social conventions to which he subscribes. But Visconti's use of the Mahler Adagietto is perfect for what I take to be Aschenbach's sexual desire.”

Want Use Form Desire Social Term Perfect Fulfillment Conventions Opera Sexual Desire Mahler

Author:Philip Kitcher

“Finally, this is one way to reconcile the delight in beauty with the bourgeois life. Aschenbach, on one reading, has spent virtually all of his adult life balancing his restrained homosexuality, which is bound together with his sensitivity to beauty and thus with his artistic vocation, against the demands of conventional society.”

Way Together Reading Demand Adults Bounds Delight One Way Artistic Conventional Homosexuality Sensitivity Vocation Bourgeois Reconcile

Author:Philip Kitcher

“Aschenbach is not only a projection of Mann in the obvious ways - same daily routines, author of the works Mann had planned - nor even in sharing his author's aspirations, doubts, and sexual identity. His watchword, "Durchhalten!" [persevere, keep going] could be Mann's own.”

Way Doubt Identity Obvious Aspiration Keep Going Projection Persevere Daily Routines

Author:Philip Kitcher

“I read Aschenbach's constant desire to go beyond the works he has already produced to be the counterpart of Mann's deep wish to surpass his previous fiction; sometimes the diaries express this in terms of a dejected judgment that the summit has already been reached.”

Sometimes Desire Wish Term Fiction Judgment Constant Diaries Summit Counterparts Dejected

Author:Philip Kitcher

“Schopenhauer's thought that Will is insatiable, that once satisfied in one form it must be expressed in new desires, is inherited both by Mann and by Aschenbach (it's in Mahler, as well). So life is inevitably incomplete.”

Wells Form Life Is Desire Satisfied Incomplete Insatiable Mahler

Author:Philip Kitcher

“The Obama-Clinton economy has done enormous damage to the Hispanic community.”

Done Community Economy Clinton Enormous Damage Hispanic

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“Sometimes, of course, the artist does give up, saying, in effect, "I've done enough". Prospero declares that the revels are ended, and breaks his staff - his author retires to Stratford. At the very end, Mann did something similar. Interestingly, in both instances, death came quite quickly after that.”

Giving Doe Ends Sometimes Done Enough Artist Courses Break Effects Giving Up Instance Retiring Staff Prospero

Author:Philip Kitcher

“So is fighting incompleteness the source of artistic neurosis? I doubt it. At most, this would apply to artists who deal with particular kinds of problems. I don't think we should think of Haydn or Mozart or Dickens or George Eliot in these terms.”

Thinking Should Kind Problem Artist Fighting Term Deals Doubt Particular Source Artistic Neurosis Dickens Eliot Incompleteness

Author:Philip Kitcher

“Mann was less interested, I think, in constructing any kind of "portrait of an age" than he was in delineating an individual consciousness in which profound struggles about identity and direction arise - struggles that Mann himself had not only reflected on but felt keenly. Visconti takes up this central focus of the novella, but he couples it with a more social perspective.”

Thinking Kind Age Individual Social Felt Consciousness Struggle Focus Identity Perspective Couple Profound Arise Portraits

Author:Philip Kitcher