The Simplest of Signs: Victor Hugo and the Language of Images in France, 1850-1950Must we learn how to read pictures? Or are pictures viewed, and texts read? If both pictures and texts are read, what theory accounts both for this reading and the manifest differences that exist between the two sign systems? In response to such questions, Timothy Raser traces the evolution of simple signs from the Romantic moment to the recent past, showing how a desire for direct signification informs both canonical Romantic texts and the art-critical texts of subsequent generations. Employing semiotic analyses, he isolates the devices used by poetry, plays, novels, and art criticism to produce effects of immediacy. So doing, he describes the rhetoric of art criticism as it evolved over the nineteenth century in France. The tropes of this genre are particular to it - resurrection is a favored metaphor - and these tropes, when deconstructed, explain arguments, evaluations, and choices that saturate the field. Timothy Raser is a Professor of French at the University of Georgia. |
From inside the book
Page 19
... appears in most of his texts and in most of his texts is rejected as illusory . But many are the authors who followed him , looking for a " magic word " that would reveal all . 1 Simple Signs in Hugo : Dates , Words , INTRODUCTION 19.
... appears in most of his texts and in most of his texts is rejected as illusory . But many are the authors who followed him , looking for a " magic word " that would reveal all . 1 Simple Signs in Hugo : Dates , Words , INTRODUCTION 19.
Page 22
... appear , suggesting protracted composi- tion . With Les Contemplations , however , few poems dated so pre- cisely can be found , and for the entirety of Book II3 dates indicate only month and century ; never day or year , even if a ...
... appear , suggesting protracted composi- tion . With Les Contemplations , however , few poems dated so pre- cisely can be found , and for the entirety of Book II3 dates indicate only month and century ; never day or year , even if a ...
Page 28
... appears to conclude a poem but it does appear within the text of Notre - Dame de Paris . In Book X , chap- ter 5 of the novel , Jacques Coppenole , speaking to Louis XI in the Bastille , reassures the king that the Revolution is still ...
... appears to conclude a poem but it does appear within the text of Notre - Dame de Paris . In Book X , chap- ter 5 of the novel , Jacques Coppenole , speaking to Louis XI in the Bastille , reassures the king that the Revolution is still ...
Page 33
... Before us , at our court , for punishment ; And be they base - born , or of noble blood , Shall then be hanged ( Hugo 1909 , 1 : 163 ) ] However , a coda appears , containing a second performative 1 : SIMPLE SIGNS IN HUGO 33.
... Before us , at our court , for punishment ; And be they base - born , or of noble blood , Shall then be hanged ( Hugo 1909 , 1 : 163 ) ] However , a coda appears , containing a second performative 1 : SIMPLE SIGNS IN HUGO 33.
Page 34
... appears , containing a second performative : Et , pour rendre a tout point 1'edit plus efficace , Renon9ons pour ce ... appear not to be whether the king is abusing his power by reversing himself , but whether he actually has the power ...
... appears , containing a second performative : Et , pour rendre a tout point 1'edit plus efficace , Renon9ons pour ce ... appear not to be whether the king is abusing his power by reversing himself , but whether he actually has the power ...
Contents
13 | |
21 | |
29 | |
People Places and Apostrophe in Tristesse dOlympio | 40 |
Revolution and AEsthetics | 49 |
Hugos Textual Systems Antithesis Inscription Ekphrasis | 61 |
Le Dernier Jour dun condamne | 74 |
Reading and Refereince in NotreDame de Paris | 87 |
Art Criticisms Narratives | 123 |
The End of Citation in Baudelaires Art Criticism | 134 |
Fromentin and Claudel | 150 |
This Side of Words | 163 |
Epilogue | 188 |
Notes | 192 |
Works Cited | 208 |
Index | |
Literary Accounts of the Visual Arts Narrative Citation and Attribution | 105 |
Reading and Denotation | 107 |
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Common terms and phrases
æsthetic allegory apostrophe argues argument art criticism art-critical artist author's translation autre Barthes Baudelaire 1965 Baudelaire's beautiful bien Bièvre Bug-Jargal c'est chose citation claim Claudel concept connotation Constantin Guys Contemplations course dates death Delacroix denotation Derrida describe discourse Dutch painting effect effet de réel essay Eugène Boudin example exile existence fait fiction figure Foucault France Frollo's Fromentin 1984 Gaudon Giuseppe Arcimboldo Guys's Hernani Hugo's ideology images imagination implies jour judgment Juliette l'homme language Leroux Les Contemplations Lucrèce Borgia Marie Tudor meaning ment metaphor n'est narrative Notre-Dame de Paris novel Olympio painter Peintre performative performative utterances poem poet poetry portrait prison Proust qu'elle qu'il Quatrevingt-treize question reader reading reference represent representation resurrection rien Roland Barthes Ruskin Ruy Blas Saint Salon Sartre Sartre's Saussure sculpture signified signs slaves story things Tintoretto tion tout Victor Hugo vie moderne word writing
Popular passages
Page 138 - You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them...
Page 116 - II faut aussi que tu n'ailles point Choisir tes mots sans quelque méprise: Rien de plus cher que la chanson grise Oü l'Indécis au Précis se joint.
Page 138 - Vous ne vous ferez point d'image taillée, ni aucune figure de tout ce qui est en haut dans le ciel, et en bas sur la terre, ni de tout ce qui est dans les eaux sous la terre.
Page 116 - C'est le grand jour tremblant de midi, C'est, par un ciel d'automne attiédi, Le bleu fouillis des claires étoiles!
Page 196 - M. Victor Hugo laisse voir dans tous ses tableaux, lyriques et dramatiques, un système d'alignement et de contrastes uniformes. L'excentricité elle-même prend chez lui des formes symétriques.
Page 199 - On peut donc concevoir une science qui étudie la vie des signes au sein de la vie sociale...
Page 56 - One must not be in the least prepossessed in favour of the real existence of the thing, but must preserve complete indifference in this respect, in order to play the part of judge in matters of taste.
Page 68 - ... volcanoes in all their violence of destruction, hurricanes leaving desolation in their track, the boundless ocean rising with rebellious force, the high waterfall of some mighty river, and the like, make our power of resistance of trifling moment in comparison with their might.
Page 199 - A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be a part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I shall call it semiology (from the Greek semeion 'sign'). Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them.
Page 81 - Antiquity had been a civilization of spectacle. 'To render accessible to a multitude of men the inspection of a small number of objects': this was the problem to which the architecture of temples, theatres and circuses responded. With spectacle, there was a predominance of public life, the intensity of festivals, sensual proximity. In these rituals in which blood flowed, society found new vigour and formed for a moment a single great body.