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. |
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Page 19
... Perhaps he lived too long : if crowds dancing in the streets during the nation's funeral for him in 1885 mean anything , it is perhaps that his presence was oppressive for younger poets . But all the writers discussed , and first among ...
... Perhaps he lived too long : if crowds dancing in the streets during the nation's funeral for him in 1885 mean anything , it is perhaps that his presence was oppressive for younger poets . But all the writers discussed , and first among ...
Page 132
... perhaps a pre - œdipal moment with his mother or the brief moment of freedom and wealth he knew in his early twenties . And he henceforth appreci- ates experience only after he has completed it : there is no sense of anticipation , of ...
... perhaps a pre - œdipal moment with his mother or the brief moment of freedom and wealth he knew in his early twenties . And he henceforth appreci- ates experience only after he has completed it : there is no sense of anticipation , of ...
Page 189
... perhaps , one sees one or the other , but not both at the same time . Certainly , both face and plants can be seen , and the relation of these two forms is of course another example of that opposition dear to Barthes , denotation ...
... perhaps , one sees one or the other , but not both at the same time . Certainly , both face and plants can be seen , and the relation of these two forms is of course another example of that opposition dear to Barthes , denotation ...
Contents
List of Illustrations | 7 |
Introduction | 13 |
Dates Words Names and Facts | 21 |
Copyright | |
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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 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 Guys's Hernani Hugo's ideology images imagination implies jour 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 Petrey 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 slaves story things Tintoretto tion tout Victor Hugo vie moderne word writing