Death in Rome

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Death in Rome
Wolfgang Koeppen, Der Tod in Rom 1954.jpg
Book cover
AuthorWolfgang Koeppen
Original titleDer Tod in Rom
CountryGermany
LanguageGerman
GenreNovel
Set inRome, post-WWII
PublisherStuttgart: Scherz und Goverts Verlag
Publication date
1954
Media typePrint: Hardback
Pages187
ISBN 9783518019146
OCLC 907595620

Death in Rome (German : Der Tod in Rom) is a 1954 German novel by Wolfgang Koeppen. Koeppen belonged to the literary generation of West Germany, which revived the devastated cultural landscape after twelve years of fascism and the ruin caused by the Second World War. Koeppen was one of the first artists to shine light upon the new social and political realities of the country at a time of chauvinistic and revanchist backlash. The novel explores themes associated with the Holocaust, German guilt, the conflict between the generations, and the silencing of the past.

Contents

The novel is the third work of the so-called Trilogy of Failure (German : Trilogie des Scheiterns), about postwar life in West Germany. It succeeds Pigeons on the Grass  [ de ] (German : Tauben im Gras, 1951), which recreates a typical day in Munich in 1948; and The Hothouse  [ bg; de ] (German : Das Treibhaus, 1953), which deals with the corruption of the Bonn government. With this trilogy, Koeppen established himself as an important figure in German post-war literature.

Death in Rome opens with an epigraph from Canto III of Dante Alighieri's Inferno : Il mal seme d'Adamo, [1] followed by the last sentence from Death in Venice: "Und noch desselben Tages empfing eine respektvoll erschütterte Welt die Nachricht von seinem Tode."

Synopsis

Context

Death in Rome deals with the careers of former National Socialists after World War II. The novel is sharply critical of Germany's past, post-war reality and future, sounding a warning and a prophetic note. [2] Koeppen targets German militarism, revealing the dangerous influence of fascist ideology on certain West German social strata.

The story, of victims and perpetrators from the time of National Socialism meeting during the post-war period, takes place against the backdrop of Rome. The city also functions as a metaphor, its ancient monuments predisposing the reader to reflect on the fate of the world, the nature of good and evil, war and peace, the past and the future, wealth and poverty, justice and social oppression. The author composes new groups from the members of two families and their surroundings, and choreographs their story in several parallel lines of action. Through a network of dialogues and inner monologues, the present is problematized and the past uncovered. The characters embody the opportunism and adaptability of the followers; the unbroken violence of the perpetrators; and the devastation and escapism of the next generation.

In the background is the unresolved problem of overcoming the past of National Socialism in the time of the Wirtschaftswunder . The novel has a particular connection with Thomas Mann's Death in Venice (German : Der Tod in Venedig, 1912), most notably in addressing the problems of artistic creativity against a background of moral decay. [2] Stylistically, Death in Rome is similar to Koeppen's two other novels, characterized by a mastery of metaphorical, associative prose and use of the devices of cinema. These include the staging, constant changes in point of view and distance to the depicted event, and the simultaneously unfolding action. Epic narrative is coupled with the characters' internal monologue, which, according to the author, "best suits our perception, our consciousness, and our bitter experience".

The author demonstrates his political and social engagement as a writer in Death in Rome. In his 1962 speech on receiving the Georg Büchner Prize, he said:

But I saw the poet, the writer for those excluded by society, I saw him as a sufferer, compassionate, outraged, a regulator of all secular order, I recognized him as the spokesman of the poor, as the advocate of the oppressed, as the champion of human rights against the tormentors of men, himself railing against the cruelty of nature and an indifferent God. I later heard talk of engaged literature, and was astounded then by the idea of wanting to turn the self-evident, as obvious as breathing, into a special artistic direction or a fashion. [3]

Koeppen does not advocate any particular ideology or political program. The words of one of the heroes of Death in Rome describe his works: "I ask questions, yet I do not know the answer, I cannot answer." Koeppen called his works "a monologue attempt against the world". Paradoxically, his protest against existence is also a plea for a new, more humane form of life, leading Alfred Andersch to describe him as a "humanistic pessimist". This hidden humanistic pathos, going beyond resignation, inspired the whole of his literary life. Of Death in Rome, Koeppen said: "We all live with politics, we are all its subjects or even victims of it ... How can the writer behave like the ostrich, and who, if not the writer, should take on the role of Cassandra in our society?" [4]

Characters

Influence

In Marian Dora's 2009 film, Melancholie der Engel , a dying man, Katze, is shown reading the book, and, upon dying, is buried with it.[ citation needed ]

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References

  1. Trabert, Florian (2010). "Part II: ESCHATOLOGIES : Il mal seme d'Adamo: Dante's Inferno and the Problem of the Literary Representation of Evil in Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus and Wolfgang Koeppen's Der Tod in Rom". In Gragnolati, Manuele; Camilletti, Fabio; Lampart, Fabian (eds.). Metamorphosing Dante: Appropriations, Manipulations, and Rewritings in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. Cultural Inquiry. Vol. 2. Vienna: Turia + Kant. pp. 89–99. doi:10.25620/ci-02_06.
  2. 1 2 Filkins, Peter (29 January 1995). "Only Doubt Endures". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
  3. Koeppen, Wolfgang. "Georg-Büchner-Preis: Dankrede" [Georg Büchner Prize: Acceptance Speech]. www.deutscheakademie.de (in German). Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung. Retrieved 31 July 2019. Aber ich sah den Dichter, den Schriftsteller bei den Außenseitern der Gesellschaft, ich sah ihn als Leidenden, als Mitleidenden, als Empörer, als Regulativ aller weltlichen Ordnung, ich erkannte ihn als den Sprecher der Armen, als den Anwalt der Unterdrückten, als den Verfechter der Menschenrechte gegen der Menschen Peiniger und selbst zornig gegen die grausame Natur und gegen den gleichgültigen Gott. Ich habe später von der engagierten Literatur reden hören, und es verblüffte mich dann schier, daß man aus dem Selbstverständlichen, so wie man atmet, eine besondere Richtung oder eine eigene Mode machen wollte.
  4. Bienek, Horst (1962). Werkstattgespräche mit Schriftstellern [Workshop Talks With Writers] (in German). Munich. p.  54.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Cited in Quinten, Roland (8 April 2013). "Zur Literatur von Wolfgang Koeppen; Plädoyer für einen fast vergessenen Dichter" [On the Literature of Wolfgang Koeppen; Advocating for a Near-Forgotten Poet]. www.fachverband-deutsch.de. CBK Online-Redaktion. Retrieved 31 July 2019. Wir alle leben mit der Politik, sind ihre Objekte, vielleicht schon ihre Opfer ... Wie darf da der Schriftsteller den Vogel Strauß mimen, und wer, wenn nicht der Schriftsteller, soll in unserer Gesellschaft die Rolle der Kassandra spielen?

Further reading