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 72
Page 85
... SOLEMN- ADMONITORY THE THREADBARE- GROTESQUE + THE VENERABLE- REGRESSIVE THE WORN- REALISTIC 6 Before we move the tree toward new categories , let us go back to other examples of the defined and denominated categories . For each of them ...
... SOLEMN- ADMONITORY THE THREADBARE- GROTESQUE + THE VENERABLE- REGRESSIVE THE WORN- REALISTIC 6 Before we move the tree toward new categories , let us go back to other examples of the defined and denominated categories . For each of them ...
Page 86
... solemnly normalizing verbs in the atem- poral present tense . Within the capital's walls , on the other hand ... solemn - admonitory , the literary substance of images boils down to a spare emphasis on adjectives and participles ...
... solemnly normalizing verbs in the atem- poral present tense . Within the capital's walls , on the other hand ... solemn - admonitory , the literary substance of images boils down to a spare emphasis on adjectives and participles ...
Page 87
... solemn - admonitory is opened . It is a lesson in human transience , proffered , however , by a profane historical event , with the impressiveness of its unrestorable remains . This relative secu- larization of the medieval Christian ...
... solemn - admonitory is opened . It is a lesson in human transience , proffered , however , by a profane historical event , with the impressiveness of its unrestorable remains . This relative secu- larization of the medieval Christian ...
Page 88
... solemn - admonitory , which is matched by the scarcity of images . As I said not far back , this category is for the most part anterior to the histor- ical turning point , and thus also to the modern capacity for sensorial evoca- tion ...
... solemn - admonitory , which is matched by the scarcity of images . As I said not far back , this category is for the most part anterior to the histor- ical turning point , and thus also to the modern capacity for sensorial evoca- tion ...
Page 89
... solemn - admonitory that is the well - known eighteenth - century fondness for the theme of ruins . In the example of it that I am choosing , ruins appear to be mediated by the language of painting , inasmuch as we are dealing with art ...
... solemn - admonitory that is the well - known eighteenth - century fondness for the theme of ruins . In the example of it that I am choosing , ruins appear to be mediated by the language of painting , inasmuch as we are dealing with art ...
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