摘 要

人们活在注意力经济的时代，当下能够吸引到人们眼球的，已经不仅仅是传统定义里美丽的事物，更多的是以丑和猎奇博出位，那便是大众眼中的有可观赏性。人们评判事物的标准悄然发生着改变，导致人们的审美水平下降成为注定的结果。本文通过对《威尼斯之死》中少年的细节描写从美学角度分析，阐明美的真正存在意义的价值，希望唤醒人们内心深处对于美的渴望，提高人们的审美标准，帮助人们正确认识美。本文主要分为三个部分：第一部分，结合宇宙美学的理论，探究美的起源；第二部分，通过不同时期对美的不同认知态度研究美在人们心中地位变化的过程；第三部分，分析威尼斯之死中的文本细节阐明少年塔齐奥作为小说中美的意象的存在意义和价值。通过对《威尼斯之死》的文本分析，结合美学理论分析，表达人们内心对于美的本能追求。

关键词：《威尼斯之死》；美；塔齐奥

Abstract

People live in the era of attention economy. What attracts people’s attention now is not only the beautiful things of traditional definition, but also more likely the ugliness and curiosity which have value of appreciation. The standards for people’s judgments have swiftly changed, leading to a decline in people’s aesthetic level. This paper analyzes the details of the teenager in Death in Venice from the aesthetic point of view, clarifies the value of the true meaning of beauty, hopes to awaken people’s longings for beauty, improve aesthetic standards of them, and help the public correctly understand beauty. This paper is divided into three parts: the first part, combined with the theory of cosmic aesthetics, explores the origin of beauty; the second part, through the understanding of different cognitive attitudes of people in different periods, studies the process of the change of beauty in people’ minds; The third part analyzes the details of the text in the Death of Venice to clarify the existence and value of the young Tadzio as the image of beauty. Through the text of the Death in Venice, combined with the previous theoretical analysis, express people’s inner pursuit of beauty.

Key words: Death in Venice , beauty，Tadzio

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Beauty in universe 3

3 Beauty in human society 4

3.1 Beauty—embodiment of divinity 5

3.2 Beauty—acceleration of sense activities 5

3.3 Beauty—God’s measure to prevent indifference 6

4 Everlasting light 8

4.1 Appearance of light 8

4.2 Source of light 11

5 Conclusion 14

References 16

Acknowledgements 17

Death in Venice: Light Everlasting

1 Introduction

Aesthetics, a branch of philosophy, is based on the study of the nature and meaning of beauty. Western aesthetics flourished during the Greek-Roman period and was originally part of the philosophy of nature. As early as the third century BC, the Stoic faction had already noticed the beauty of nature (Gilbertamp;Kuhn, 1989, 4). At that time, the focus of aesthetics was on nature. In ancient Greece, Socrates turned his attention from the natural world to the society, and thus, aesthetics became an important part of social sciences. In the Middle Ages, Western aesthetic thoughts were stagnant due to the constraints of religious theology. Therefore, during the Renaissance, with the liberation of the spirit, the advancement of aesthetics ushered in a major outbreak. Then in the 16^th and 18^th century, with the changes and progress of society, aesthetics has been further developed in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and other countries. Although the complete theoretical system of aesthetics was introduced to China in modern times, the origin of Chinese aesthetics is not later than that of the West. In the pre-Qin period, due to the emergence of “Contention of a hundred schools of thought”, China’s classical aesthetic theory began to sprout, and it was reflected in the works of Confucius and Zhuangzi. Social and economic changes have taken place in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. People’s theoretical thoughts are very active. The trend of ideological emancipation that emerged during this period has impacted dogmatism aesthetics and retro-style aesthetics. Western aesthetics was introduced to China in the late Qing Dynasty. At the same time, China’s classical aesthetics was also summarized and systematically organized. Under the efforts of Cai Yuanpei and Zhu Guangqian and other aesthetics, the aesthetics rooted in China is developing in a broader direction. .

Death in Venice is a famous work by Thomas Mann. The work spreads the ancient Greek Aeschy-style classical tragedy spirit, describing the passion of a writer who broke out after meeting the young boy in Venice; his rationality, dignity and knowledge is defeated in the pursuit of beauty. After the advent of the novel, many writers have analyzed this novel more or less, like in Two Texts, Three Artists and a Theme—from the Novel Death in Venice and the Movie（Liu, 2009）. In the modern dilemma of creation, the author combines the novel to analyze the real dilemma of Thomas Man himself. In Typical and Mythical—Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice（Li，2006）, the author affirmed the literary status of Thomas Mann’s work. Some articles are also from the aesthetic point of view of Death in Venice, such as the Death of Narrative Aesthetics and Gender Identity Dilemma and Death in Venice: the Entanglement Between Beauty and Reason（Dai，2015）. This paper analyzes the influence of Tadzio’s image on the protagonist’s forgetful life and death in the novel from the aesthetic point of juvenile imagery.