Venice as No-Place: Liminality and the Modernist Interpretation of the Myth of Venice

Abstract

This thesis examines the traditional concept of a literary myth of Venice and argues how a significant change in the modernist understanding of place effectively re-imagines the city of Venice in a variety of non-geographical ways. Tracing this re-imagining by modernist authors, I focus first on the Henry James novella, "The Aspern Papers," addressing the specific Venetian symbolism James employs to reveal his interpretation of the city's stage-like setting and how James, as a forerunner to the modernism movement, used the stage to mimic each character's consciousness. Then, in using Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice," I explore the evolution of the use of Venice by modernist authors by considering Mann's incorporation of the illusionary and decadent reputation of the city to heighten the modernist trope of double vision. Lastly, in a treatment of Ernst Hemingway's final novel, Across the River and Into the Trees, I conclude the theory of an evolving use of Venice as setting in modernist fiction by examining Hemingway's concept of liminality and memory, and address how he relies on the city's unique history to serve as a reflection of the mental state of the Western world following the end of World War II.