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 99
... reading of the sculpture , Proust who is resurrected in his reading of Ruskin , and the reader who is resurrected by reading Proust . Only print can produce this resurrection : the multiplication of readers occa- sioned by publication ...
... reading of the sculpture , Proust who is resurrected in his reading of Ruskin , and the reader who is resurrected by reading Proust . Only print can produce this resurrection : the multiplication of readers occa- sioned by publication ...
Page 114
... reading , but has also to do with another dis- course : Ruskin's English , of course , but Ruskin's earnest , messianic and pedantic bent too , considerations far from Proust's acknowledged intent . Proust's essay appears as preface to ...
... reading , but has also to do with another dis- course : Ruskin's English , of course , but Ruskin's earnest , messianic and pedantic bent too , considerations far from Proust's acknowledged intent . Proust's essay appears as preface to ...
Page 115
... reader . Reading is thus a withdrawal into solitude , a solitude where one comes into contact with an author , but this contact is attenuated in the extreme : there is no domination by the author ; the reader is free to end the dialogue ...
... reader . Reading is thus a withdrawal into solitude , a solitude where one comes into contact with an author , but this contact is attenuated in the extreme : there is no domination by the author ; the reader is free to end the dialogue ...
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