| The Death of Virgil | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Hermann Broch |
| Original title | Der Tod des Virgil |
| Country | Austria / United States |
| Language | German |
| Genre(s) | Historical novel |
| Publisher | Pantheon Books |
| Publication date | 1945 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 494 pp (first edition hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 1-117-57202-1 (first edition hardcover) |
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.
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 – frustrated by the emperor – to burn his Aeneid, 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. Harry Levin comments 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."
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 Zürich 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[update], the most recent English language edition of the novel (Penguin, 2000) is out of print, although Vintage Books appears still to offer it in a 1995 reprint.