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. |
Contents
13 | |
21 | |
Limits of Performative Language in Hugos Theater | 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 |
208 | |
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