The Death of Virgil

The Death of Virgil (Der Tod des Vergil) is a novel originally written in German by the Austrian author Hermann Broch. The English translation and an edition in German were both published in 1945. The stream of consciousness and complex literary allusions in the novel were influenced by the modernist style of James Joyce. Exploring the death of Virgil in exile, it echoes Broch's own exile from Austria to a concentration camp and then to the United States.

Related Topics:
Novel - German - Austrian - Hermann Broch - English translation - 1945 - Stream of consciousness - Modernist - James Joyce - Virgil - Concentration camp - United States

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This great, difficult novel, in which reality and hallucination, poetry and prose are inextricably mingled, reenacts the last hours of life of the Roman poet Virgil, in the port of Brundisium (Brindisi), where he accompanied Augustus, his decision to burn his Aeneid, frustrated by the emperor, 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 to 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. Levin coments that "Broch's novel creates out of a dying poet's a rich, profound vision both of civilisation and of primal concerns of all mankind."

Related Topics:
Roman - Virgil - Brindisi - Augustus - Aeneid

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Broch started to write the novel in 1938 while imprisoned in a concentration camp and finished it in the United States, where it was first published. 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. It was published by Pantheon Books of New York in 1945, who published an edition in the original German later that year. A German language edition was also published in Zurich by Rhein Verlag in 1947 but the first German publication was not until 1958 when editions were published in Frankfurt and Munich; the latter with colour illustrations by Celestino Piatti. As of 2005, the most recent English language edition of the novel (Penguin, 2000) is out of print.

Related Topics:
1938 - Concentration camp - United States - English - Jean Starr Untermeyer - Pantheon Books - New York - 1945 - Zurich - Rhein Verlag - 1958 - Celestino Piatti - As of 2005

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