1,397 research outputs found
Providence, Anti-providence, and the Experience of Time in the Shadow-Line
No full textThe essay focuses on The Shadow Line's use, and parody, of providential plot and Gothic stereotypes. Conrad evokes and undermines a providential view of events and the anti-providential response of late 19th-century fiction. His self-reflexive work with genres is, therefore, ultimately instrumental to representing an open, non-teleological time time that escapes anthropocentric conceptions and values individual choice
Bodily signs and disembodied narrative in «Pamela II»
No full textTo a large extent, the detractors of Pamela criticized Richardson’s focus on the body. Pamela’s actions and narrative style appeared to be motivated by her desire, namely, by her passions, traditionally located in the body. In particular, Pamela’s bodily identity undermined her authority as an impartial eyewitness, suggested that she could not act as a disinterested narrator and that her voice was not creditable enough to acquire public relevance. Responding to his critics, in Pamela II Richardson set up a different narrative technique, and inscribed the body of the heroine with new, less problematic meanings. In Pamela II, there is a chronological gap between story and discourse. Moreover, in keeping with the codes and stereotypes of sensibility, Pamela is deeply moved by virtuous behaviour, her bodily reactions signalizing her moral value. Along with the new representation of the body goes the effacement of desire and, inevitably, the disintegration of plot. However, Richardson’s experimentation with narrative was not yet over. Reconciling disinterestedness and desire, in Clarissa he wove a polyphony of epistolary voices, enabling the disinterested assessment of an external interpreter
Novel: la genesi del romanzo moderno nell'Inghilterra del Settecento
No full textTra gli eventi cruciali della storia culturale inglese c’è, nel Settecento, la nascita del novel, il romanzo moderno: una rivoluzione i cui effetti non si sono ancora esauriti, perché delle innovazioni di Defoe, Richardson e Fielding – la cui opera segna il cristallizzarsi del nuovo genere – si vedono, a distanza di secoli, ampie tracce. Per ricostruire la genesi del novel, occorre indagare i fitti rapporti tra letteratura e cultura. Comprenderne le origini significa, infatti, guardare ad altri fenomeni, anch’essi rivoluzionari: il delinearsi dell’idea di società civile, della dialettica tra pubblico e privato, e del dibattito su costumi, politica ed economia; significa, al tempo stesso, guardare agli stretti legami fra tali fenomeni e i meccanismi del racconto, ai tentativi, spesso imperfetti, di scrivere storie utili e fondate sull’esperienza, ma capaci, contemporaneamente, di incantare i lettori. Lo studio delle origini del novel suscita, inoltre, domande sull’intera tradizione del realismo, sugli ideali, le ambizioni e le tecniche di scrittori come Scott, Eliot, Balzac, Proust, Franzen e Siti. Intrecciando analisi storica e riflessione teorica, questo saggio va alle radici della civiltà letteraria moderna, interrogandosi su una cultura in cui siamo ancora immersi, e alla quale, paradossalmente, è legato anche l’immaginario del fantastico, che del realismo non può fare a meno
Empirical Wonder: Historicizing the Fantastic,1660-1760
No full textEighteenth-century England did not only see the rise of the novel, but also the rise of genres of what we now call the fantastic, such as imaginary voyages and apparition narratives. Combining theoretical reflection and cultural analysis, the author of this book investigates the origins, and demonstrates the formal and historical identity of a great variety of texts, which have never been considered as part of the same family. The fantastic, he argues, is an intrinsically modern mode, which uses the devices of realistic representation to describe supernatural phenomena. Its origins can be found in the seventeenth century, when the rise of modern empiricism threatened the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of traditional religious culture. The author shows how a broad range of discursive formations - demonology, providential literature, teratology, and natural philosophy - attempted to reconcile world-views that were felt to be increasingly incompatible, and traces the development of a new kind of fiction that gradually replaced them and took over their work of reconciliation. Coalescing as an autonomous system of genres, free from the restrictions of modern science and at the same time self-consciously aesthetic, the fantastic emerged as an instrument both to affirm and to transcend the empirical vision
"il naufrago dai mille volti"
No full textIntroduzione al "Robinson Crusoe" di Daniel Defoe, con panorama storico-culturale e note sulla ricezione + apparato bibliografic
Il Robinson Crusoe e la reinvenzione del romance
No full textA reading of "Robinson Crusoe" in light of Frye's archetypalist theory of romance
"Individual Soldier": Corto Maltese e l'immaginario coloniale
No full textThis essay explores Hugo Pratt's use, and parody of, colonial plots and stereotypes codified in the late Victorian adventure romance
La strana e sorprendente carriera di un figliol prodigo: Figure dell'autorità nel "Robinson Crusoe"
No full textAnalisi del ruolo della parabola del "figliol prodigo" nel Robinson CrusoeA reading of "Robinson Crusoe" that centers on the role played by the parable of the prodigal son in the production of the novel's underlying ideolog
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