Obsolete Objects in the Literary Imagination

Ruins, Relics, Rarities, Rubbish, Uninhabited Places, and Hidden Treasures

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism
Cover of the book Obsolete Objects in the Literary Imagination by Prof. Francesco Orlando, Yale University Press
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Author: Prof. Francesco Orlando ISBN: 9780300138214
Publisher: Yale University Press Publication: October 1, 2008
Imprint: Yale University Press Language: English
Author: Prof. Francesco Orlando
ISBN: 9780300138214
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication: October 1, 2008
Imprint: Yale University Press
Language: English
Translated 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.
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Translated 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.

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