Signs Taken for Wonders: On the Sociology of Literary FormsShakespearean tragedy and Dracula, Sherlock Holmes and Ulysses, Frankenstei and The Waste Land--all are celebrated "wonders" of modern literature, whether in its mandarin or popular form. However, it is the fact that these texts are so central to our contemporary notion of literature that sometimes hinders our ability to understand them. Franco Moretti applies himself to this problem by drawing skillfully on structuralist, sociological and psycho-analytic modes of enquity in order to read these texts as literary systems which are tokens of wider cultural and political realities. In the process, Moretti offers us compelling accounts of various literary genres, explores the relationships between high and mass culture in this century, and considers the relevance of tragic, Romantic and Darwinian views of the world. |
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Signs Taken for Wonders: Essays in the Sociology of Literary Forms Franco Moretti Limited preview - 2020 |
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absolute action aesthetic already analysis Balzac becomes Bildungsroman Bloom bourgeois capitalism capitalist century character civilization concept conflict consciousness criminal crisis detective fiction Dracula duel elements Eliot Elizabethan English essay existence expression fact fear formal Frankenstein Freud function genre Georg Lukács Gorboduc Hamlet Hegel hypotheses idea ideal ideology individual Jacobean Joyce Joyce's judgement king literary criticism literature London longer Lukács Macbeth Marx Mary Shelley mass culture Max Weber meaning metaphor modern monster moral myth mythic narration narrative nature negation never novel object one's opposite Paul Street Boys play plot political possible precisely principle problem reader reality reason relationship rhetorical sense significance social society sovereign specific sphere story stream of consciousness structure super-ego symbolic theory things tion tragedy tragic hero transformed true Ulysses unconscious urban values vampire Van Helsing Waste Land words world picture