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. |
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Page xii
Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures Francesco Orlando. the future. They appear ... ruin that cannot fall down fast enough; as the buried treasure of memories and older values looked back upon with ...
Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures Francesco Orlando. the future. They appear ... ruin that cannot fall down fast enough; as the buried treasure of memories and older values looked back upon with ...
Page 2
Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures Francesco Orlando. stants in theme , that is , in content , that were themselves linked to each other . The form was that of a list , of varying length and ...
Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures Francesco Orlando. stants in theme , that is , in content , that were themselves linked to each other . The form was that of a list , of varying length and ...
Page 6
Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures Francesco Orlando. anything he says about literature, there is a no less important, readily distin- guishable imperative that can, rather, be defined as rational ...
Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures Francesco Orlando. anything he says about literature, there is a no less important, readily distin- guishable imperative that can, rather, be defined as rational ...
Page 37
Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures Francesco Orlando. feather , and the house , sinking , falling , would have turned and pitched down- wards to the depths of darkness . In the ruined room ...
Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures Francesco Orlando. feather , and the house , sinking , falling , would have turned and pitched down- wards to the depths of darkness . In the ruined room ...
Page 40
Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures Francesco Orlando. Cancer . All of these elements could have converged in forming one of those talismanic objects of which surrealism is so enamored . But , on 20 ...
Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures Francesco Orlando. Cancer . All of these elements could have converged in forming one of those talismanic objects of which surrealism is so enamored . But , on 20 ...
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