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 85
... 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 , let us consider ...
... 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 , let us consider ...
Page 91
... threadbare - grotesque is also for the most part prior to the historical turning point and therefore to the modern capacity for sensorial evocation . If , despite this , the texts presented as pure examples of the threadbare - grotesque ...
... threadbare - grotesque is also for the most part prior to the historical turning point and therefore to the modern capacity for sensorial evocation . If , despite this , the texts presented as pure examples of the threadbare - grotesque ...
Page 92
... threadbare - grotesque with that of the worn- realistic , precisely at the point of bifurcation that separates them in the tree . In the more modern topos , the determination of a passage of time , be it dated or not , virtually ...
... threadbare - grotesque with that of the worn- realistic , precisely at the point of bifurcation that separates them in the tree . In the more modern topos , the determination of a passage of time , be it dated or not , virtually ...
Page 93
... threadbare - grotesque comical tendencies is metaliterary and cultivated . Even when it is at the first level imitative , it often lives explicitly , and always im- plicitly , at the expense of the types of serious language that it ...
... threadbare - grotesque comical tendencies is metaliterary and cultivated . Even when it is at the first level imitative , it often lives explicitly , and always im- plicitly , at the expense of the types of serious language that it ...
Page 94
... threadbare - grotesque . Things that belong to the first species come closer to the limit of the comical , as can be seen in the comic personifica- tions of the stool lacking a leg and the bottles lacking necks . Other things have ...
... threadbare - grotesque . Things that belong to the first species come closer to the limit of the comical , as can be seen in the comic personifica- tions of the stool lacking a leg and the bottles lacking necks . Other things have ...
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