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 91
Page xii
... the tran- sience of all human things. As the compromise-formation that Orlando con- ceives it to be, literature cannot free itself or its society from their reigning reality principle , nor can it turn into pure rhetorical xii Foreword.
... the tran- sience of all human things. As the compromise-formation that Orlando con- ceives it to be, literature cannot free itself or its society from their reigning reality principle , nor can it turn into pure rhetorical xii Foreword.
Page xiii
... turn into pure rhetorical figure - both would mean literal madness and unreadability . Nevertheless literature gives the pleasure principle its due and takes part in the experience of human liberation . “ Poetry makes nothing happen ...
... turn into pure rhetorical figure - both would mean literal madness and unreadability . Nevertheless literature gives the pleasure principle its due and takes part in the experience of human liberation . “ Poetry makes nothing happen ...
Page 8
... turning to chro- nological succession and causal necessity, rather than to the current ranking of function and nonfunction, the loss of function is what appears to be of pri- mary importance. More exceptionally in our history: if a ...
... turning to chro- nological succession and causal necessity, rather than to the current ranking of function and nonfunction, the loss of function is what appears to be of pri- mary importance. More exceptionally in our history: if a ...
Page 10
... turn synthesize another ideal half of our field. I shall take equally conventional examples, one by one, thereby composing an equally heterogeneous series and continuing to imagine them outside of actual literary texts. I shall now say ...
... turn synthesize another ideal half of our field. I shall take equally conventional examples, one by one, thereby composing an equally heterogeneous series and continuing to imagine them outside of actual literary texts. I shall now say ...
Page 27
... turn to the great realistic novels of the nineteenth century, and we will begin with their most mature phase. I have chosen a passage from A Simple Heart (Un Coeur simple) by Gustave Flaubert (1821–80), published in 1877 as the first of ...
... turn to the great realistic novels of the nineteenth century, and we will begin with their most mature phase. I have chosen a passage from A Simple Heart (Un Coeur simple) by Gustave Flaubert (1821–80), published in 1877 as the first of ...
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