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 45
Page 1
... respect: not only were they drawn from several different authors, but they also belonged to different liter- ary genres, languages, and periods. I am trying to recall how the constants that I felt I was identifying in the passages ...
... respect: not only were they drawn from several different authors, but they also belonged to different liter- ary genres, languages, and periods. I am trying to recall how the constants that I felt I was identifying in the passages ...
Page 2
... respect to theme , only one particular kind of such objects — and on a monumental scale - seemed to have attracted scholars ' specific attention . I am referring , of course , to the theme of ruins , Roman and otherwise : a theme that ...
... respect to theme , only one particular kind of such objects — and on a monumental scale - seemed to have attracted scholars ' specific attention . I am referring , of course , to the theme of ruins , Roman and otherwise : a theme that ...
Page 7
... respect to a corpus of so many heterogeneous literary texts , are nothing other than the application of abstract needs and ideals of Western rationality to the physical world . The Freudian " reality principle " takes its historic shape ...
... respect to a corpus of so many heterogeneous literary texts , are nothing other than the application of abstract needs and ideals of Western rationality to the physical world . The Freudian " reality principle " takes its historic shape ...
Page 12
... primary importance for a Freudian. The oldest form of ambiva- lence, with respect to the individual, is, rather, that revealed by Freud in the early childhood relationship with excrement , and it begins at 12 What This Book Is About I.6.
... primary importance for a Freudian. The oldest form of ambiva- lence, with respect to the individual, is, rather, that revealed by Freud in the early childhood relationship with excrement , and it begins at 12 What This Book Is About I.6.
Page 22
... respect to our previous texts : the presence of narration in the verses . Thus the list operates also as a description , such as might open a prose short story . Contrary to Borges ' everyday things , rendered absolute in a metaphysical ...
... respect to our previous texts : the presence of narration in the verses . Thus the list operates also as a description , such as might open a prose short story . Contrary to Borges ' everyday things , rendered absolute in a metaphysical ...
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