The city of Venice, from at least the 16th century, has been popularly portrayed as a ‘fantasmatic’ scene of desire by a Western geographical imagination. I argue that these representational strategies closely parallel the homology and practice of Orientalism, most notably documented by Edward Said. Said's argument, however, pays precious little attention to the ‘connective imperative’ at work between colonial powers, a gendered erotics of knowledge, and heteronormative practices. Focusing on Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice and Ian McEwan's more recent book The Comfort of Strangers, I argue that both authors continue an ‘erotics of composition’—the historical practice of framing, ordering, and composing Venice in gendered, heterosexist terms—which bolsters a series of stereotypes about the licentious behavior of ‘Orientals’.
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