[<<] January 2006 Jahsonic (03) [>>]
2006, Jan 11; 15:07 ::: Visionary Architects: Boulee, Ledoux, Lequeu (2002) - Jean-Claude Lemagny
Visionary Architects: Boulee, Ledoux, Lequeu (2002) - Jean-Claude Lemagny [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The drawings and engravings of the French visionary architects Boullee, Ledoux, and Lequeu lie on the nervous cusp of Neoclassicism and hallucination. The three designed vast, impractical monuments, villas and temples, cathedrals and libraries, incorporating motifs from the classical era informed by the new intellectual freedoms of the Enlightenment. The resulting drawings and plans are like nothing done before or since, and their daring has reverberated through to us in the work of such architects as Speer, Graves, Sant'Elia, and Stirling. --via Amazon.com
Visionary architecture
Visionary architecture is the name given to architecture which exists only on paper or which has visionary qualities. Étienne-Louis Boullée, Claude Nicolas Ledoux and Jean-Jacques Lequeu are one of the earliest examples of the discipline. But the work of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Antonio Sant'Elia and Buckminster Fuller is also included. In the latter half of the 20th century, there were architectural design movements such as Archigram, Archizoom and Superstudio.The architectural paintings of Giorgio de Chirico also are sometimes included in this category.--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visionary_architecture [Jan 2006]
See also: visionary - visionary architecture - architecture - Futurism
2006, Jan 10; 23:07 ::: An artist might advance specifically to get lost“In the illusory babels of language, an artist might advance specifically to get lost, and to intoxicate himself in dizzying syntaxes, seeking odd intersections of meaning, strange corridors of history, unexpected echoes, unknown humors, or voids of knowledge… but this quest is risky, full of bottomless fictions and endless architectures and counter-architectures… at the end, if there is an end, are perhaps only meaningless reverberations.” --Robert Smithson, A Museum of Language in the Vicinity of Art (1968), in: Jack Flam (red.), Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, University of California Press, 1996, p. 78.See also: Robert Smithson
2006, Jan 10; 22:07 ::: Centrale elettrica (1914) - Antonio Sant'Elia
Centrale elettrica (1914) - Antonio Sant'Elia
This particular drawing has the same textural qualities of the cityscapes of Italian comic creator Liberatore's RanXerox series, especially the "cracks" in the surface
Antonio Sant'Elia (April 30, 1888 - October 10, 1916) was an Italian architect. He was born in Como, Lombardy. A builder by training, he opened a design office in Milan in 1912 and became involved with the Futurist movement. Between 1912 and 1914, influenced by industrial cities of the United States and the Viennese architects Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos, he began a series of design drawings for a futuristic Città Nuova (New City) that was conceived as symbolic of a new age. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio Sant'Elia [Jan 2006]
Futurist architecture
Futurist architecture began as an early-20th century form of architecture characterized by anti-historicism and long horizontal lines suggesting speed, motion and urgency. The movement lasted in Italy from around 1909 to 1944, with works by notable figures such as architect Antonio Sant'Elia, author Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and sculptor Umberto Boccioni.Futurism has become a broad trend in modern design which aspires to create architecture of an imagined future, normally thought to be at least 10 years into the future. The beginnings of Futurism go back to the visionary drawings of Italian architect Antonio Sant'Elia, as well as the Googie architecture of 1950s California and subsequent Space Age trends. Early features of Futurism included fins and ledges, bubble shapes and sweeping curves. The city of Brasilia, designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer, is perhaps the largest implementation of futurism ever undertaken. The style has been reinterpreted by different generations of architects across several decades, but is usually marked by striking shapes, clean lines, and advanced materials.
Architects who have been influential in the futurist movement include:
Louis Armet * Welton Becket * Arthur Erickson * Wayne McAllister * Oscar Niemeyer * William Pereira--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurist_architecture [Jan 2006]See also: 1914 - Futurism - modern architecture - architecture
2006, Jan 10; 21:07 ::: Abduction of Europa (1908) - Félix Vallotton
Abduction of Europa (1908) - Félix Vallotton
The influence of Vallotton's work on 1920s art deco (take Tamara de Lempicka for example) can readily be seen in this workFélix Vallotton (Lausanne, 28th December 1865 – 29th December 1925) was a Franco-Swiss post-impressionist painter, associated with the Nabis movement, as well as an engraver, illustrator, and writer.
Works
Vallotton dealt with all types of painting: still lifes, portraits, interiors, figures, nudes, landscapes and large mythological or allegorical scenes. Before the war he had already achieved recognition for his mastery of nudes and figures. Subsequently, his "composed landscapes", recreated from memory in his studio, met with a growing interest. Many were the sources which inspired his landscapes: Switzerland and in particular the area around Lac Leman where he returned regularly for holidays; the surroundings of Honfleur, his Summer residence from 1909 onwards, as well as many other regions of France ; also Italy which he regularly visited, and Russia where he stayed in 1913.Félix Vallotton's work is widely diversified, since it comprises more than 200 engravings, innumerable drawings, some 1700 paintings, a few sculptures, as well as writings including three novels, several plays, essays and art criticism. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9lix_Vallotton [Jan 2006]
Les Nabis
Nabis (or Les Nabis; the prophets, from the Hebrew term for prophet) was a group of young post-impressionist avant-garde Parisian artists of the 1890s that influenced the fine arts and graphic arts in France at the turn of the 20th century. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Nabis [Jan 2006]Post-impressionism
Post-impressionism is a term applied to painting styles of the late 19th and early 20th centuries — after impressionism.Their more exaggerated forms and use of colour, structure and line paved the way for later 20th century art styles such as fauvism and cubism.
Art critic Roger Fry first used the term to describe the Les Nabis group. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-impressionism [Jan 2006]
See also: 1908 - Switzerland - art
2006, Jan 10; 21:07 ::: Joost de Momper
Anthrophomorphic Landscape (Early 17th century) - Jose de Momper
Image sourced here.More Renaissance images from aiwaz.net
Born in Antwerp in 1564, Joos de Momper ((1564-1634/35) ) (also spelled Jose or Joost) is regarded as one of the leading Flemish landscape painters of his time. He was active during a period characterised by a transition from mannerist ideas to a realistic depiction of the landscape. --http://www.qag.qld.gov.au/collection/historical_international_art/circle_of_joos_de_momper [Jan 2006]
See also: Renaissance - Belgian art - Mannerism - landscape - 1500s - 1600s
2006, Jan 10; 12:07 ::: Le Moyen Age fantastique : antiquités et exotismes dans l'art gothique (1955) - Jurgis Baltrusaitis
Le Moyen Age fantastique : antiquités et exotismes dans l'art gothique (1955) - Jurgis Baltrusaitis [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Jurgis Baltrušaitis (born in Paantvardziani in May 2, 1873 – died in Paris in January 3, 1944) was a Lithuanian poet, who wrote his literary works in Lithuanian and Russian. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurgis_Baltru%C5%A1aitis [Jan 2006]
By the same author: Anamorphic Art, trans. W.J. Strachen, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
See also: Gothic art - Middle Ages - fantastic - fantastique - 1955 - exotica
2006, Jan 10; 09:07 ::: San Gimignano
San Gimignano is a small walled medieval hill-top town in Tuscany, Italy, about a 35 minute drive north-west of Siena and about the same distance southwest of Florence. It is mainly famous for its medieval architecture, especially its towers.
In Tuscan medieval walled towns, rich families competed in the erection of high towers, that served as lodgings, fortresses and prestige symbols. Because San Gimignano sits atop a hill the skyline can be seen for several miles outside the town. In medieval and Renaissance times it was a stopping point for pilgrims on their way to Rome and the Vatican.
While in other cities like Bologna or Florence, most or all of the towers have been brought down due to wars, catastrophes or urban renewal, San Gimignano managed to conserve about 15 towers of varying height. The modern town has extended some kilometres out and is no longer affected by this race.
San Gimignano is also famous for its torture museum, with a display of instruments and devices for torture in various times and places, complete with multi-lingual descriptions of their use. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gimignano [Jan 2006]
See also: Italy - Middle Ages - architecture - Gothic architecture - tourism - torture
2006, Jan 10; 09:07 ::: Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Prints and Drawings (2001) - Nadine M. Orenstein (Editor)
Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Prints and Drawings (2001) - Nadine M. Orenstein (Editor) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Contains the Superbia (pride) sci-fi looking prints of Brueghel the Elder
From Publishers Weekly
Accompanying an exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints, edited by Nadine M. Orenstein, features the lesser known works of this famous 16th-century Flemish artist. In the introduction and essays, seven scholars, including museum director Philippe de Montebello, Manfred Sellink, Michiel C. Plomp and the editor, explore diverse biographical and artistic craft issues e.g., all that is known for certain of Bruegel's life is that, though he painted peasants, and early biographers dubbed him the "`Peasant Bruegel,'" he was in fact an urban intellectual. The exhibit treats these drawings in a new light thanks to the "transformative insight" of the late Hans Mielke i.e., new attributions to Bruegel or his circle, such as a sketch formerly attributed to Hieronymous Bosch. The book features 274 illustrations (108 in color): Bruegel's 54 works alongside works by his colleagues, predecessors and successors. --Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.From Library Journal
Known to his contemporaries as the "second Hieronymous Bosch," Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525/30-69) was a consummate draftsman. While his allegorical paintings of peasants are more familiar today, his print designs were widely copied for several generations. As to his drawings, only 61 remain of what was likely a large body of work, including many landscapes; it is believed that his wife was asked to burn many of them as socially inflammatory. For this catalog, which accompanies a traveling exhibition that just closed at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the associate curator of the museum's department of drawings has assembled an international group of experts to share what little is known about this artist as well as current research into his complete oeuvre. Oddly, this is the first exhibition of its kind, with 104 drawings and prints by Bruegel and his followers. Given the unique coverage of Bruegel and other period artists as well as the printmaking history, this book is essential for art collections, but it is too specialized for smaller libraries on a tight budget. Susan Lense, Upper Arlington P.L., OHSee also: Pieter Brueghel the Elder - 1500s - art in Belgium - fantastic art
2006, Jan 10; 09:07 ::: Momo (1973) - Michael Ende
Momo (1973) - Michael Ende [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Momo, also known as The Grey Gentlemen or The Men in Grey, is a fantasy novel by Michael Ende, published in 1973. It is about the concept of time and how it is used by humans in modern societies. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momo [Jan 2006]
See also: 1973 - Germany - fantastic literature
2006, Jan 10; 09:07 ::: Curse of the Darkling Mill (1971) - Otfried Preussler
Curse of the Darkling Mill (1971) - Otfried Preussler [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Synopsis
Secret Arts. Unexplained deaths. What is happening at the mill in the fens? Drawn by powers beyond his control, fourteen-year-old Krabat finds himself apprenticed to the dark mill and begins work with the Miller's eleven other journeymen. But strange things continue to happen at the mill. Time passes at an unnatural pace, and the journeymen have superhuman powers, and can turn themselves into ravens and other creatures. Trapped by an evil power which makes escape impossible, Krabat is forced to submit to the Master of the Mill as he tries to unravel the mill's secrets. "The Curse of the Darkling Mill" is an eerie tale of sorcery and nightmares, which will keep you guessing right to the end. --from the publisherOriginal German title: Krabat
Otfried Preußler (born October 20, 1923) is a German children's books author. His best-known works are The Robber Hotzenplotz and The Satanic Mill (Krabat). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otfried_Preu%C3%9Fler [Jan 2006]
Inspired by Joost
See also: 1971 - Germany - fantastic literature
2006, Jan 10; 07:07 ::: Bibliography of the fantastic
- Das Unheimliche (1919) / The Uncanny - Sigmund Freud
- La carne, la morte, e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica (Italy, 1930) / Romantic Agony - Mario Praz
- Le moyen-age fantastique (Paris, 1955) Jurgis Baltrusaitis
- The Grotesque in Art and Literature (1957) - Wolfgang Kayser
- Arts fantastiques (Paris, 1960) - Claude Roy
- L'art fantastique (1961) - Marcel Brion
- Au coeur du fantastique (Paris, 1965) - Roger Caillois
- Dreamers of Decadence: Symbolist Painters of the 1890s (1969) - Philippe Jullian
- Introduction à la littérature fantastique (1970) / The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre - Tzvetan Todorov
- 200 Jahre Phantastische Malerei (Berlin, 1973) - Wieland Schmied
- The Occult in Art (1990) - Owen S. Rackleff
- Les peintres du fantastique (1996) - André Barret
L'art fantastique naît-il au XVIII°siècle comme la littérature fantastique ?
Non, puisqu'André Barret pose que des traces en sont présentes dans les grottes préhistoriques, que Marcel Brion illustre ses méditations à partir de Jerôme Bosch, tout comme Louis Vax ou Claude Roy, et que Roger Caillois fait, lui aussi, références à des peintres antérieurs au XVIII° siècle. Voyons ce que dit Louis Vax : « La sculpture fantastique a fleuri dès le moyen âge. On voit dans la cathédrale de Tournai deux oiseaux liés ensemble par le cou, un dragon, un cheval bicéphale, un sphinx a double corps ...A l'âge gothique, une foule de monstres expriment les tendances comprimées, terreur et paillardise, qui attendront l'âge suivant pour se montrer au grand jour » ( p.37) --Roger BOZZETTO via http://www.noosfere.org/Bozzetto/article.asp?numarticle=322 [Jan 2006]
See also: fantastic - fantastique
2006, Jan 09; 23:07 ::: Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930) - William Empson
Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930) - William Empson [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
See also: 1930 - poetry - ambiguity
2006, Jan 09; 20:07 ::: Simplicissimus (1668) - Johann Grimmelshausen
Simplicissimus (1668) - Johann Grimmelshausen [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
unidentified frontispiece to Simplicissimus, in the grotesque styleHans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1622? - August 11, 1676), German author, was born at Gelnhausen in or about 1622.
At the age of ten he was kidnapped by Hessian soldiery, and in their midst tasted the adventures of military life in the Thirty Years' War. At its close, Grimmelshausen entered the service of Franz Egon von Fürstenberg, bishop in Strasbourg and in 1665 was made Schultheiss (magistrate) at Renchen in Baden.
On obtaining this appointment, he devoted himself to literary pursuits, and in 1668 published Der Abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch, d.h. die Beschreibung des Lebens eines seltsamen Vaganten, genannt Melchior Sternfels von Fuchsheim, the greatest German novel of the 17th century. For this work he took as his model the picaresque romances of Spain, already to some extent known in Germany. Simplicissimus is in great measure its author's autobiography; he begins with the childhood of his hero, and describes the latter's adventures amid the stirring scenes of the Thirty Years' War. The rustic detail with which these pictures are presented makes the book one of the most valuable documents of its time. In the later parts Grimmelshausen, however, over-indulges in allegory, and finally loses himself in a Robinson Crusoe story. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Jakob_Christoffel_von_Grimmelshausen [Jan 2006]
War novel
As the prose fiction novel rose to prominence in the seventeenth century, the war novel began to develop its modern form, although most novels featuring war were picaresque satires in which the soldier was rakish rather than than realistic figure. An example of one such work is Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus, a semi-autobiographical account of the Thirty Years War. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_novel#Origins [Jan 2006]See also: 1600s literature - 1600s - war in fiction - picaresque novel
2006, Jan 09; 11:07 ::: Shaftesbury: Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711) - Lord Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury: Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711) - Lord Shaftesbury [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book Description
Shaftesbury's Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times was published in 1711. It ranges widely over ethics, aesthetics, religion, the arts (painting, literature, architecture, gardening), and ancient and modern history, and aims at nothing less than a new ideal of the gentleman. Together with Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Addison and Steele's Spectator, it is a text of fundamental importance for understanding the thought and culture of Enlightenment Europe. This volume presents a new edition of the text together with an introduction, explanatory notes and a guide to further reading. --via Amazon.comAnthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (February 26, 1671 – February 4, 1713), was an English politician, philosopher and writer. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Ashley-Cooper%2C_3rd_Earl_of_Shaftesbury [Jan 2006]
The sublime
The development of the concept of the sublime as an aesthetic quality distinct from beauty was first brought into prominence in the eighteenth century in the writings of Anthony Ashley Cooper (third earl of Shaftesbury) and John Dennis, in expressing an appreciation of the fearful and irregular forms of external nature, and Joseph Addison’s synthesis of Cooper’s and Dennis’ concepts of the sublime in his The Spectator, and later the Pleasures of the Imagination. All three Englishmen had, within the span of several years, made the journey across the Alps and commented in their writings of the horrors and harmony of the experience, expressing a contrast of aesthetic qualities. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublime_%28philosophy%29#Eighteenth_Century [Jan 2006]See also: 1710s - aesthetics - sublime - sensibility - UK - taste
2006, Jan 09; 11:07 ::: Authorial intentionalityIn literary theory and aesthetics, authorial intentionality is a concept referring to an author's intent as it is encoded in his work.
Literary theory
In literary studies, the question of the validity of the methods of determining authorial intent has been debated since the early twentieth century. New Criticism, as espoused by Cleanth Brooks, W. K. Wimsatt, T. S. Eliot, and others, argued that authorial intent is irrelevant to understanding a work of literature. The author, they argue, cannot be reconstructed from a writing. The text is the only source of meaning, and any details of the author's desires or life are purely extraneous. In psychoanalytic criticism, on the other hand, the author's biography and subconscious state were seen as part of the text, and therefore the author's intent could be revived from a literary text -- although the intent might be a subconscious one.
In post-structuralism, there are a variety of approaches to authorial intent. For deconstruction, the authorial intent is again irrelevant and unknowable. Furthermore, the critic's will and intention are superior to the author's (cf. Roland Barthes's "The Death of the Author" and his S/Z). In other post-structuralist approaches, authorial intent exists as a psychological phenomenon, and texts endlessly recreate psycho-linguistic battles. For some of the theorists deriving from Jacques Lacan, and in particular theories variously called écriture féminine, gender and sex predetermine the ways that texts will emerge, and the language of textuality itself will present an argument that is potentially counter to the author's conscious intent.
For Marxist literary theorists, the author's intent is always a code for a particular set of ideologies in the author's own day. For naive Marxists (especially those of the Soviet Realism type), authorial intent is manifest in the text and must be placed in a context of liberation and the materialist dialectic. However, Marxist-derived theorists have seen authorial intent in a much more nuanced way. Raymond Williams, for example, posits literary productions always within a context of emerging, resistant, and synthetic ideological positions. The author's intent is recoverable from the text, but there is always encoded within it several separate positions. The author might be arguing consciously for empire, but hidden within that argument will be a response to a counterargument and a presentation of an emerging synthesis. Some members of the reception theory group (Hans Robert Jauss, in particular) have approximated the Marxist view by arguing that the forces of cultural reception reveal the ideological positions of both author and readership.
Reader Response critics view the authorial intent variously. In general, they have argued that the author's intent itself is immaterial and cannot be fully recovered. However, the author's intent will shape the text and limit the possible interpretations of a work. The reader's impression of the author's intent is a working force in interpretation, but the author's actual intent is not. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intentionality [Jan 2006]
Applied to erotica and pornography:
The difference between the two terms, apart from the moral/aesthetic judgement, largely rests on the intention of the person doing the "making". It is assumed that the pornographer produces pornography with the sole intention of causing people to feel sexually aroused, usually for financial gain. Erotica, however, may also have aesthetic or expressive purposes; there is less sense of the producer manipulating the feelings of the consumer, and less implication of purely financial motives. There is also a difference as regards the medium; the word "pornography" is nearly always applied to written texts, film and, primarily, photographs. One may say "an erotic statue", but probably not "a pornographic statue". --Robin Turner, Debating Pornography: Categories and Metaphors via http://neptune.spaceports.com/~words/debating.html [May 2005]
See also: author - audience - literary theory - meaning - interpretation
2006, Jan 09; 10:07 ::: Pioneer of Inner Space: The Life of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Hasheesh Eater (1998) - Donald P. Dulcinos
Pioneer of Inner Space: The Life of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Hasheesh Eater (1998) - Donald P. Dulcinos [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The Hasheesh Eater is an autobiographical book by Fitz Hugh Ludlow, first published in 1857.
The Hasheesh Eater describes Ludlow's altered states of consciousness and philosophical flights of fancy while he was using a cannabis extract. It is Ludlow's best-known book (only one other, The Heart of the Continent, has seen a new edition since the 19th Century).
The Hasheesh Eater is an uncomfortable book for many readers. People who have a knee-jerk reaction toward marijuana and are comfortable stereotyping its users as burnt-out hedonists will not enjoy Ludlow's description of the cannabis user as one who is reaching for "the soul's capacity for a broader being, deeper insight, grander views of Beauty, Truth and Good than she now gains through the chinks of her cell." Similarly, today's drug enthusiasts will be put off by Ludlow's final warning: "Ho there! pass by; I have tried this way; it leads at last into poisonous wildernesses."
The Hasheesh Eater went through four editions in the late 1850s and early 1860s, each put out by Harper & Brothers. In 1903, another publishing house put a reprint of the original edition — and the last complete edition until 1970. Currently, one edition is in print, an annotated hypertext CD-ROM version published in 2003. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hasheesh_Eater [Jan 2006]
See also: hasheesh - American literature - drugs in literature - 1857
2006, Jan 08; 20:07 ::: Land of Silence and Darkness (1971) - Werner Herzog
Land of Silence and Darkness (1971) - Werner Herzog [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Product Description:
"In this astonishing documentary about the world of the deaf-blind, acclaimed director Werner Herzog (Signs of Life, Aguirre: The Wrath of God) explores the life of Fini Straubinger, a remarkable and kind-hearted 56-year-old deaf and blind woman who has dedicated her life to helping the similarly afflicted. --via Amazon.comDeafblindness is the condition of having little or no useful sight and hearing. As with the word "Deaf", it can be capitalized to indicate that it is a culture; some prefer the spelling "DeafBlind". Deafblind people have an experience quite distinct from people who are only deaf or blind and not both. The most well known Deafblind person is the author, activist and lecturer Helen Keller. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deafblindness [Jan 2006]
See also: blind - film - senses - 1971 - Werner Herzog
2006, Jan 08; 19:07 ::: The Meaning of Meaning (1923) - C. K. Ogden, I. A. Richards
The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism (1923) - C. K. Ogden, I. A. Richards [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Ivor Armstrong Richards (February 26, 1893-1979) was an influential literary critic and rhetorician. His books, especially The Meaning of Meaning, Principles of Literary Criticism, Practical Criticism, and The Philosophy of Rhetoric, were among the founding documents of the New Criticism, and most of the eminent New Critics were Richards's students. Since the New Criticism, at least in English-speaking countries, is often thought of as the beginning of modern literary criticism, Richards is one of the founders of the contemporary study of literature in English. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._A._Richards [Jan 2006]
See also: meaning - symbol - 1923 - literary theory
2006, Jan 08; 19:07 ::: Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Aesthetics of Obscenity (2000) - Allison Pease
Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Aesthetics of Obscenity (2000) - Allison Pease [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book Description
How did explicit sexual representation become acceptable in the twentieth century as art rather than pornography? Allison Pease answers this question by tracing the relationship between aesthetics and obscenity from the 1700s onward, focusing especially on the way in which early twentieth-century writers incorporated a sexually explicit discourse into their work. The book considers the work of Swinburne, Joyce and Lawrence and artist Aubrey Beardsley within the framework of a wide-ranging account of aesthetic theory beginning with Kant and concluding with F. R. Leavis, I. A. Richards and T. S. Eliot.See also: explicit - Modernism - mass society - aesthetics - obscenity
2006, Jan 08; 18:07 ::: Pulp : Reading Popular Fiction (1998) - Scott McCracken
Pulp : Reading Popular Fiction (1998) - Scott McCracken [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book Description
Pulp brings together in one volume chapters on the bestseller, detective fiction, popular romance, science fiction and horror. It combines a lucid and accessible account of the cultural theories that have informed the study of popular fiction with detailed readings of particularly Jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper, Colin Dexter, William Gibson, Stephen King, Iain Banks, Terry McMillan and Walter Mosley. Scott McCracken argues that popular fiction serves a vital function in the late twentieth century: it provides us with the means to construct a workable sense of self in the face of the disorientating pressures of modernity.About the Author
Scott McCracken is Lecturer in English at the University of Salford.See also: pulp fiction - popular fiction - paraliterature
2006, Jan 08; 18:07 ::: Gothic Horror : A Reader's Guide from Poe to King and Beyond (1998) Clive Bloom
Gothic Horror : A Reader's Guide from Poe to King and Beyond (1998) Clive Bloom [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book Description
Horror fiction is as popular now as it was when Edgar Allen Poe reinvented the gothic genre in the 1840s, and in the late twentieth century Stephen King is the most read American author ever. This anthology presents classic and contemporary accounts of modern gothic horror writing from Edgar Allen Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, Stephen King, Barker and many other authors, as well as essays from current literary scholars, providing an essential guide to the genre and the variety of approaches possible when discussing the literature of terror.See also: gothic horror - horror fiction - gothic novel - Clive Bloom
2006, Jan 08; 17:07 ::: Bestsellers: Popular Fiction Since 1900 (2002) - Clive Bloom
Bestsellers: Popular Fiction Since 1900 (2002) - Clive Bloom [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book Description
What fiction have British people been reading in the last hundred years? Who are the most popular authors, the most popular books and the most important genres? Such straightforward questions raise intriguing literary, cultural, social and intellectual responses which often require much detective work in the annals of lost literature. This essential guide and reference work is the only available study of all of the bestselling books, authors and genres since the beginning of the twentieth-century, providing an unique insight into over one hundred years of publishing and reading as well as taking us on a journey into the heart of the British imagination. --via Amazon.comSee also: bestseller - literature - audience - Clive Bloom
2006, Jan 08; 17:07 ::: Fiction and the Reading Public (1932) - Q. D. Leavis
Fiction and the Reading Public (1932) - Q. D. Leavis [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Q. D. ('Queenie') Leavis (1906-1981), nee Roth, was an English literary critic and essayist.
She wrote about the historical sociology of reading and the development of the English, the European, and the American novel. In her penetrating and lucid criticism she paid particular attention to the writings of Jane Austen, George Eliot, Herman Melville, the Brontes, Edith Wharton and Charles Dickens.
Much of her work was published collaboratively with her husband, F. R. Leavis. She contributed to and supported as an editor Scrutiny (1932-1951), an influential journal that promoted a morally serious approach to literary criticism.
Her collected essays which include some previously unpublished writings are available in three volumes. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q._D._Leavis [Jan 2006]
See also: 1932 - literature - audience - literary theory
2006, Jan 08; 16:07 ::: The Book of Disquiet (1982) - Fernando Pessoa
The Book of Disquiet (1982) - Fernando Pessoa [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (b. June 13, 1888 in Lisbon, Portugal — d. November 30, 1935 in the city of his birth) was a poet and writer, seen by many as one of the most notable Portuguese authors of all time. Critic Harold Bloom referred to him in the book The Western Canon as the most representative poet of the 20th century, along with Pablo Neruda. Pessoa is unique as an author due to the prevalence of heteronyms in his writing, with few of his poems being signed by himself. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa [Jan 2006]
Inspired by Caroline
See also: 1982 - literature - modern literature - Portugal