How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Nothing gladdens a writer more than a thought that can become pure feeling and a feeling that can become pure thought. Just such a pulsating thought, just such a precise feeling was then in the possession and service of the solitary traveler: nature trembles with bliss when the mind bows in homage to beauty. He suddenly desired to write. Eros, we are told, loves indolence, and for indolence was he created. But as this point in his crisis the stricken man was aroused to production. The stimulus scarcely mattered. A query, a challenge to make one's views known on a certain major, burning issue of taste and culture had gone out to eh intellectual world and caught up with him on his travels. It was something he was familiar with, something he knew from experience, and the desire to make it shine in the light of his words was suddenly irresistible. (4.10)
If Aschenbach travels to escape his writer's block, then Tadzio is his cure. Here, "Eros," the stirring of Aschenbach's erotic feelings for Tadzio, is put in the position of a source of inspiration. The desire to make his idea "shine in the light of his words" is aligned here with a sexual desire—Aschenbach's longing for Tadzio as a symbol of pure beauty.
Quote #8
What is more, he longed to work in Tadzio's presence, to model his writing on the boy's physique, to let his style follow the lines of that body, which he saw as godlike, and bear it beauty to the realm of the intellect, as the eagle had once borne the Trojan shepherd to the ether. Never had he experienced the pleasure of the word to be sweeter, never had he known with such certitude that Eros is in the word than during those dangerously delightful hours when, seated at his rough table under the awning, in full view of his idol, the music of his voice in his ears, he formulated that little essay—a page and a half of sublime prose based on Tadzio's beauty—the purity, nobility, and quivering emotion tension of which would soon win the admiration of many. (4.10)
Tadzio not only inspires Aschenbach to write; Aschenbach does write, and the "page and a half" he writes about Tadzio's beauty "would soon win the admiration of many." At this point in Death in Venice, Aschenbach reaches the high point of his creative potential, when he realizes that "Eros is in the word"—the idea that creativity has something to do with eroticism. But "Eros" can also be dangerous…
Quote #9
It is surely as well that the world knows only a beautiful work itself and not its origins, the conditions under which it comes into being, for if people had knowledge of the sources from which the artist derives his inspiration they would oftentimes be confused and alarmed and thus vitiate the effects the artist had achieved. How strange those hours were! How oddly enervating the effort! How curiously fruitful the intercourse of mind with body! When Aschenbach put away his work and quit the beach, he felt exhausted and, yes, spent, as if his conscience were reproaching him after a debauch. (4.10)
When it comes to writing, this passage informs us, some things are better left unsaid. People prefer to imagine writing as a task that has nothing to do with illicit passion. But, as it turns out, that's just what Death and Venice goes and shows us. Death in Venice is kind of like a behind-the-scenes version of literature.