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 87
Page xii
... things that rapidly lose their utility and value testifies to the uncertain social and economic bourgeois world that has succeeded the continuity of the ancien régime, a world of commodi- ties with built-in obsolescence and of ...
... things that rapidly lose their utility and value testifies to the uncertain social and economic bourgeois world that has succeeded the continuity of the ancien régime, a world of commodi- ties with built-in obsolescence and of ...
Page 2
... things in the material sense of the 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 ...
... things in the material sense of the 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 ...
Page 3
... things than to its representation — which , if the relationship be whole and intact , would rather require the evaluation of the things taken one by one . But if any kind of discovery was in fact beginning to take shape and find ...
... things than to its representation — which , if the relationship be whole and intact , would rather require the evaluation of the things taken one by one . But if any kind of discovery was in fact beginning to take shape and find ...
Page 4
... things put side by side in my research ? These derelict things would invariably have suffered the ideological fate of things during the second half of the 1970s , namely , to evaporate into signs- signs that were all the purer ( or ...
... things put side by side in my research ? These derelict things would invariably have suffered the ideological fate of things during the second half of the 1970s , namely , to evaporate into signs- signs that were all the purer ( or ...
Page 5
... things solely through literary documents would be absurd; and even worse since it would be wholly impossible to ... thing that encounters distancing, diffidence, repugnance, refusal, or condem- nation outside of the field of fiction. If ...
... things solely through literary documents would be absurd; and even worse since it would be wholly impossible to ... thing that encounters distancing, diffidence, repugnance, refusal, or condem- nation outside of the field of fiction. If ...
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