The Life and Work of Thomas Mann: A Gay Perspective

Slightly shorter than the piece on Death in Venice in the 1994 Norton anthology, this essay develops my thinking on the role of male-male desire in Thomas Mann’s famous novella. It concludes that the novella “may in fact achieve some insights into the the relationship between sexuality and gender that Mann’s essays do not …. Death in Venice presents the dead end of misogynistic male homosexuality, perhaps more clearly than its author knew.”

“The Life and Work of Thomas Mann:  A Gay Perspective,” in Thomas Mann, Death in Venice, ed. Naomi Ritter (New York: Bedford Books, 1998) 225-244.