The Myth of Venice in Literature: Memory, Desire and Death

This course will explore the myth of Venice in literature: focusing on the topos of Venice in the genre of travel writing, we will study the theme of liberty and decadence associated with Venice’s theatrical and political culture. Readings will include Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice , excerpts from De Brosses’s Travels through Italy , Goldoni’s Memoirs , Rousseau’s Confessions , and Casanova’s Histoire de ma vie . We will also study the influence of these accounts on the Romantic poets (Goethe, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Musset), and modernity (Henry James’s The Aspern Papers , Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice , Donna Leone’s Death at the Fenice ).