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 89
Page x
... the terms of the Russian formalists , cause estrangement : they are to be under- stood , Orlando suggests , as the return of a repressed infantile pleasure in — - playing with words and meaning . For this reason , x Foreword.
... the terms of the Russian formalists , cause estrangement : they are to be under- stood , Orlando suggests , as the return of a repressed infantile pleasure in — - playing with words and meaning . For this reason , x Foreword.
Page xi
... words and meaning . For this reason , as Orlando contends in his brilliant study of Enlightenment literature and thought , Illuminismo , barocco e retorica freudiana ( 1982 ; 1997 ) , the lumières of the late seventeenth and eighteenth ...
... words and meaning . For this reason , as Orlando contends in his brilliant study of Enlightenment literature and thought , Illuminismo , barocco e retorica freudiana ( 1982 ; 1997 ) , the lumières of the late seventeenth and eighteenth ...
Page 1
... words, just as the author finds it hard at the outset. I am persuaded I have ascertained—at length and analytically—the existence of a unified subject of this inquiry. Yet now, in order to provide a brief glimpse of it to the reader, I ...
... words, just as the author finds it hard at the outset. I am persuaded I have ascertained—at length and analytically—the existence of a unified subject of this inquiry. Yet now, in order to provide a brief glimpse of it to the reader, I ...
Page 2
... word— physically concrete things presented on the imaginary plane of reality of the various literary texts . The second thematic constant was the decisive one , and the one most difficult to describe . It consisted in the fact that ...
... word— physically concrete things presented on the imaginary plane of reality of the various literary texts . The second thematic constant was the decisive one , and the one most difficult to describe . It consisted in the fact that ...
Page 5
... words, it assumes that literature is either openly or secretly concessive, indulgent, partial, favorable, or complicit toward every- thing that encounters distancing, diffidence, repugnance, refusal, or condem- nation outside of the ...
... words, it assumes that literature is either openly or secretly concessive, indulgent, partial, favorable, or complicit toward every- thing that encounters distancing, diffidence, repugnance, refusal, or condem- nation outside of the ...
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