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
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Page iv
... Modern—History and criticism. I. Title. PN56.E7807513 2006 809%.9332—dc22 2005027649 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of ...
... Modern—History and criticism. I. Title. PN56.E7807513 2006 809%.9332—dc22 2005027649 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of ...
Page xii
... modern focus becomes clear here, as a traditional, universal sense of memento mori is complemented by more socially inflected feelings and attitudes. This preoccupation with things that rapidly lose their utility and value testifies to ...
... modern focus becomes clear here, as a traditional, universal sense of memento mori is complemented by more socially inflected feelings and attitudes. This preoccupation with things that rapidly lose their utility and value testifies to ...
Page 11
... modern terms , let us again borrow from Freud a concept that is irreplaceable both for its logical strangeness and , alas , for the frequency with which it should be applied : compromise - formation . In other words , let us allow that ...
... modern terms , let us again borrow from Freud a concept that is irreplaceable both for its logical strangeness and , alas , for the frequency with which it should be applied : compromise - formation . In other words , let us allow that ...
Page 14
... modern terms of reference , helps us to set the subject of our inquiry in a large - scale historical perspective . Of course , it helps us to do so starting with what is most typical : negative or simple examples . But the extension of ...
... modern terms of reference , helps us to set the subject of our inquiry in a large - scale historical perspective . Of course , it helps us to do so starting with what is most typical : negative or simple examples . But the extension of ...
Page 15
... modern historical materialization to none other than the ambivalence of all ambivalences , that is , to the one which is first infantile and then unconscious : feces . To describe as anticommodities the literary images of useless or ...
... modern historical materialization to none other than the ambivalence of all ambivalences , that is , to the one which is first infantile and then unconscious : feces . To describe as anticommodities the literary images of useless or ...
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