<P> Mann's original intention was to write about "passion as confusion and degradation", after having been fascinated by the true story of Goethe's love for 18 - year - old Baroness Ulrike von Levetzow, which had led Goethe to write his Marienbad Elegy . The May 1911 death of composer Gustav Mahler in Vienna and Mann's interest in the boy Władzio during summer 1911 vacation in Venice (more below) were additional experiences occupying his thoughts . He used the story to illuminate certain convictions about the relationship between life and mind, with Aschenbach representing the intellectual . Mann was also influenced by Sigmund Freud and his views on dreams, as well as by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who had visited Venice several times . </P> <P> The novella is rife with allusions from antiquity forward, especially to Greek antiquity and to German works (literary, art - historical, musical, visual) from the eighteenth century on . </P> <P> One important framework of references points to Greek mythology; Aschenbach's Venice seems populated by the gods . By dedicating himself to Apollo, whom Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy took to represent restraint, form and the intellect, Aschenbach has denied the power of Dionysus, Nietzsche's god of unreason and of passion--a voluntary act of what Freud would call "suppression". Dionysus seems to have followed Aschenbach to Venice with the intent of destroying him: the red - haired man who keeps crossing von Aschenbach's path, in the guise of different characters, could be a figure of Silenus, Dionysus's mythological chief disciple . In the Benjamin Britten opera these characters (the traveller, the gondolier, the leading player and the voice of Dionysus) are played by the same baritone singer, who also plays the hotel manager, the barber and the old man on the Vaporetto . The trope of placing classical deities in contemporary settings was popular at the time when Mann was writing Death in Venice: in England, at almost the same time, E.M. Forster was at work on an entire short - story collection based on this premise . The idea of the opposition of the Apollonian and Dionysian was first proposed by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy and was also a popular motif of the time . </P> <P> Aschenbach's name and character may be inspired by the homosexual German poet August von Platen - Hallermünde . There are allusions to his poems about Venice in the novella and, like Aschenbach, he died of cholera on an Italian island . Aschenbach's first name is almost an anagram of August, and the character's last name may be derived from Platen's birthplace, Ansbach . However, the name has another clear significance: Aschenbach literally means "ash brook". The novella's physical description of Aschenbach was based on a photograph of the composer Gustav Mahler . Mahler had made a strong personal impression on Mann when they met in Munich, and Mann was shocked by the news of Mahler's death in Vienna . Mann gave Mahler's first name and facial appearance to Aschenbach, but did not talk about it in public . (The soundtrack of the 1971 film based on the novella made use of Mahler's compositions, particularly the "Adagietto" 4th movement from the Symphony No. 5). </P>

Summary of death in venice by thomas mann