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''The Death of Virgil'' (german: Der Tod des Vergil) is a 1945 novel by the Austrian author
Hermann Broch Hermann Broch (; 1 November 1886 – 30 May 1951) was an Austrian writer, best known for two major works of modernist fiction: '' The Sleepwalkers'' (''Die Schlafwandler,'' 1930–32) and ''The Death of Virgil'' (''Der Tod des Vergil,'' 1945). ...
. The narrative reenacts the last hours of life of the
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
poet
Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
, in the port of Brundisium (
Brindisi Brindisi ( , ) ; la, Brundisium; grc, Βρεντέσιον, translit=Brentésion; cms, Brunda), group=pron is a city in the region of Apulia in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Brindisi, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Hist ...
), whence he had accompanied the emperor
Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
, his decision – frustrated by the emperor – to burn his ''
Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of t ...
'', and his final reconciliation with his destiny. Virgil's heightened perceptions as he dies recall his life and the age in which he lives. The poet is in the interval between life and death, just as his culture hangs between the pagan and Christian eras. As he reflects, Virgil recognises that history is at a cusp and that he may have falsified reality in his attempt to create beauty.


Writing process

Broch started to write the novel in 1936, worked on a second version in 1938 – to some extent while imprisoned in
Bad Aussee Bad Aussee (Central Bavarian: ''Bod Ossee'') is a town in the Austrian state of Styria, located at the confluence of the three sources of the Traun River in the Ausseerland region. Bad Aussee serves as the economic and cultural center of the Styri ...
for three weeks – and finished it in the United States (1940-1945). The
stream of consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver in 1840 in ''First L ...
and complex literary allusions in the novel were influenced by the
modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
style of
James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
. The first edition was an English translation by Jean Starr Untermeyer, who is said to have collaborated so closely with Broch as to be almost a co-author.


Publication

Pantheon Books Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint with editorial independence. It is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.Random House, Inc. Datamonitor Company Profiles Authority: Retrieved 6/20/2007, from EBSCO Host Business Source ...
of
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
published the book simultaneously in its original German as well as its English translation by Jean Starr Untermeyer in June 1945. George F. Peters claims that Broch had continued to work on the text after the English translation went to press in December 1944, resulting in some slight differences. A German language edition was also published in
Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zü ...
by Rhein Verlag in 1947, but the first publication in Germany was not until 1958 when editions were published in Frankfurt and Munich; the latter with colour illustrations by Celestino Piatti. the most recent English language edition of the novel (Penguin, 2000) is out of print, although
Vintage Books Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was purchased by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random Hou ...
appears still to offer it in a 1995 reprint, and released it as an ebook on January 12, 2012.


Reception and influence

Erich Heller observed that if "''The Death of Virgil'' is his masterpiece... it is a very problematical one, for it attempts to give literary shape to the author's growing aversion to literature. In the very year the novel appeared, Broch confessed to 'a deep revulsion' from literature as such – 'the domain of vanity and mendacity'. Written with a paradoxical, lyrical exuberance, it is the imaginary record of the poet's last day and his renunciation of poetry. He commands the manuscript of the ''Aeneid'' to be destroyed, not because it is incomplete or imperfect but because it is poetry and not 'knowledge'. He even says his ''Georgics'' are useless, inferior to any expert treatise on agriculture. His friend the Emperor Augustus undoes his design and his works are saved." Harry Levin comments that "Broch's novel creates out of a dying poet a rich, profound vision both of civilization and of primal concerns of all mankind." The French composer Jean Barraqué composed a number of works inspired by ''The Death of Virgil''.


Interpretation

Some scholars have interpreted the book as an anti-
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
novel. Virgil's fear that his writing will only serve to encourage
autocratic Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perh ...
repression is seen as a direct result of the Nazi Party's interest in and inspiration from classical sources.


Editions

* Broch, Hermann. Untermeyer, Jean Starr (tr.) ''The Death of Virgil'' (New York: Pantheon, 1945) *Broch, Hermann. ''Der Tod des Vergil'' (New York: Pantheon, 1945) *Broch, Hermann. Untermeyer, Jean Starr (tr.) ''The Death of Virgil'' (London: Routledge, 1946) * Broch, Hermann. ''Der Tod des Vergil'' (Zürich: Rhein, 1947) * Broch, Hermann. ''Der Tod des Vergil'' (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1958) * Broch, Hermann. Piatti, Celestino. ''Der Tod des Vergil'' (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch, 1958) * Broch, Hermann. Untermeyer, Jean Starr (tr.) ''The Death of Virgil'' (London/New York: Penguin, 2000)


References


Further reading

* Erich Heller, �
Hitler in a very Small Town
��, ''New York Times'', January 25, 1987.

Retrieved July 28, 2005. *Levin, Bernard. Introduction to Broch, Hermann. Untermeyer, Jean Starr (tr.) ''The Death of Virgil'' (Oxford: University, 1983) {{DEFAULTSORT:Death of Virgil, The 1945 novels Austrian novels Novels by Hermann Broch Novels set in ancient Rome Cultural depictions of Virgil Novels about writers Novels about philosophers Pantheon Books books Austrian historical novels Novels set in the 1st century BC