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 79
Page xii
... chapter charts the full range of affective reactions produced by these images in a branching tree of twelve categories that also suggests Orlando's debt to structuralism and its binary oppositions. The ensuing fifth chapter traces ...
... chapter charts the full range of affective reactions produced by these images in a branching tree of twelve categories that also suggests Orlando's debt to structuralism and its binary oppositions. The ensuing fifth chapter traces ...
Page 17
... chapter . However , it is important to keep always in mind that each of these examples was initially stumbled upon in that accidental , involun- tary , and gradual way I have described ( I , 1 ) . In consequence the selection and ...
... chapter . However , it is important to keep always in mind that each of these examples was initially stumbled upon in that accidental , involun- tary , and gradual way I have described ( I , 1 ) . In consequence the selection and ...
Page 19
... chapter I spoke of literature as the site of an antifunctional return of the repressed ( I , 3−4 ) , but only by freely altering a sentence by Marx did I dare to do so with so absolute an identification- by way of metonymy plus ...
... chapter I spoke of literature as the site of an antifunctional return of the repressed ( I , 3−4 ) , but only by freely altering a sentence by Marx did I dare to do so with so absolute an identification- by way of metonymy plus ...
Page 21
... chapter ( I , 1 ) . On the other hand , it derives from what this time , too , is a metaphorical valence , not so much of the objects in themselves as of human relationship to them . And “ human ” is to be taken in a metahistorical and ...
... chapter ( I , 1 ) . On the other hand , it derives from what this time , too , is a metaphorical valence , not so much of the objects in themselves as of human relationship to them . And “ human ” is to be taken in a metahistorical and ...
Page 36
... chapter in which Mrs. McNab , who is too old to carry out the heavy task of opening and cleaning the house once in a while , weaves thoughts about its disastrous state into memo- ries of Mrs. Ramsay , who has long been dead ; this comes ...
... chapter in which Mrs. McNab , who is too old to carry out the heavy task of opening and cleaning the house once in a while , weaves thoughts about its disastrous state into memo- ries of Mrs. Ramsay , who has long been dead ; this comes ...
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 |
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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