Obsolete Objects in the Literary Imagination: Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden TreasuresTranslated here into English for the first time is a monumental work of literary history and criticism comparable in scope and achievement to Eric Auerbach’s Mimesis. Italian critic Francesco Orlando explores Western literature’s obsession with outmoded and nonfunctional objects (ruins, obsolete machinery, broken things, trash, etc.). Combining the insights of psychoanalysis and literary-political history, Orlando traces this obsession to a turning point in history, at the end of eighteenth-century industrialization, when the functional becomes the dominant value of Western culture. Roaming through every genre and much of the history of Western literature, the author identifies distinct categories into which obsolete images can be classified and provides myriad examples. The function of literature, he concludes, is to remind us of what we have lost and what we are losing as we rush toward the future. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 82
Page xi
... . But these objects return , depicted in literature whose own cultural function is to remind us of what we have lost and are constantly losing in our rush into the future. They appear frequently in the telltale form of Foreword xi.
... . But these objects return , depicted in literature whose own cultural function is to remind us of what we have lost and are constantly losing in our rush into the future. They appear frequently in the telltale form of Foreword xi.
Page xii
... appear frequently in the telltale form of the list, which groups together disparate items, regardless of their former contexts. They are recuper- ated with the ambivalence that Orlando sees in all such negations: as the dilapidated ...
... appear frequently in the telltale form of the list, which groups together disparate items, regardless of their former contexts. They are recuper- ated with the ambivalence that Orlando sees in all such negations: as the dilapidated ...
Page xvii
... appear in the text in English translation. For all languages listed above with the exception of Greek, the original titles either appear in parentheses on first mention, or are given in a shortly following source note. Quotations and ...
... appear in the text in English translation. For all languages listed above with the exception of Greek, the original titles either appear in parentheses on first mention, or are given in a shortly following source note. Quotations and ...
Page 1
... appear bizarre at first sight. And not only at first sight: perhaps even the reader who has reached the end of this book will find it hard to summarize in a few words, just as the author finds it hard at the outset. I am persuaded I ...
... appear bizarre at first sight. And not only at first sight: perhaps even the reader who has reached the end of this book will find it hard to summarize in a few words, just as the author finds it hard at the outset. I am persuaded I ...
Page 8
... appears any time a positive element necessarily presupposes a negative one, or any time a thing may be derived exclusively from its opposite. There are in fact situations in which the func- tional must postulate the nonfunctional and ...
... appears any time a positive element necessarily presupposes a negative one, or any time a thing may be derived exclusively from its opposite. There are in fact situations in which the func- tional must postulate the nonfunctional and ...
Contents
1 | |
17 | |
47 | |
67 | |
Twelve Categories Not to Be Too Sharply Distinguished | 206 |
Some TwentiethCentury Novels | 343 |
Praising and Disparaging the Functional | 375 |
Notes | 407 |
Index of Subjects | 481 |
Index of Names and Texts | 487 |
Other editions - View all
Obsolete Objects in the Literary Imagination: Ruins, Relics, Rarities ... Francesco Orlando No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
adjectives already ambivalence ancien régime ancient antifunctional antiquity appears Balzac Baroque become Bibliothèque castle catachresis century chap chapter character Chateaubriand Comédie humaine contamination culture dead death desolate-disconnected Everyman's Library examples fact functional furniture genre Gothic novel historical turning point human hyperbole Ibid imagery images Jerusalem Delivered kitsch La Comédie humaine la Pléiade Les Rougon-Macquart less lines literary literature magic memory metaphor metonymy Milan modern Mondadori narrative narrator nature negative category night nonfunctional corporality novel objects Oblomov Oeuvres complètes opposition Orlando outdoing Oxford University Press palace Paris passage past Pléiade poem poetic precious-potential present pretentious-fictitious protagonist quoted refer relationship remains reminiscent-affective repressed ruins seems semantic tree semipositive category sense sinister-terrifying solemn-admonitory space sterile-noxious story supernatural symbolic tercet thematic constants theme things threadbare-grotesque tion tradition trans treasure Turin venerable-regressive walls words worn-realistic