Book•
Les Chants de Maldoror
01 Jan 1868-
TL;DR: In this article, the lecteur, enhardi and devenu momentanément féroce comme ce qu’ il lit, trouve, without se désorienter, son chemin abrupt and sauvage, à travers les marécages désolés de ces pages sombres and pleines de poison.
Abstract: Plût au ciel que le lecteur, enhardi et devenu momentanément féroce comme ce qu’ il lit, trouve, sans se désorienter, son chemin abrupt et sauvage, à travers les marécages désolés de ces pages sombres et pleines de poison ; car, à moins qu’ il n’ apporte dans sa lecture une logique rigoureuse et une tension d’ esprit égale au moins à sa défiance, les émanations mortelles de ce livre imbiberont son âme comme l’ eau le sucre. Il n’ est pas bon que tout le monde lise les pages qui vont suivre ; quelques-uns seuls savoureront ce fruit amer sans danger. Par conséquent, âme timide, avant de pénétrer plus loin dans de pareilles landes inexplorées, dirige tes talons en arrière et non en avant. écoute bien ce que je te dis : dirige tes talons en arrière et non en avant, comme les yeux d’ un fils qui se détourne respectueusement de la contemplation auguste de la face maternelle ; ou, plutôt, comme un angle à perte de vue de grues frileuses méditant beaucoup, qui, pendant l’ hiver, vole puissamment à travers le silence, toutes voiles tendues, vers un point déterminé de l’ horizon, d’ où tout à coup part un vent étrange et fort, précurseur de la tempête. La grue la plus vieille et qui forme à elle seule l’ avant-garde, voyant cela, branle la tête comme une personne raisonnable, conséquemment son bec aussi qu’ elle fait p 24
Citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the Batman's Joker as a descendant of a specifically violent circus tradition and its reflection in literature, and they describe the aesthetic of violence characteristic of these circus pantomime clowns as the essence of modernity.
Abstract: Besides the doltishly clumsy, amusingly simple and happily idiotic type of clown, there is the evil violent clown. Violent clowns can be traced back to the (circus-)pantomimes of the nineteenth century, to circus tradition and circus literature. Thus, on the basis of the popular corpo-eccentric clown-theatre presented by the French Theâtre des Funambules between 1819 and 1846, as well as the pantomimes of the brothers Hanlon-Lee, this article presents Batman’s Joker as descendant of a specifically violent circus tradition and its reflection in literature. Baudelaire and Adorno understand the aesthetic of violence characteristic of these circus pantomime clowns as the essence of modernity. The appearance and playful rearrangement, montage and reinterpretation of historical (circus) clown elements are typical for Batman’s Joker. Thus, he can be described as a neo-modern clown of violence.
22 citations
Dissertation•
01 Feb 2014
TL;DR: The authors argue that the heterotopia was never intended as a tool for the study of real urban places, but rather pertains to fictional representations of these sites, which allow authors to open up unthinkable configurations of space.
Abstract: This thesis looks to restore Michel Foucault’s concept of the heterotopia to its literary origins, and to examine its changing status as a literary motif through the course of twentieth-century fiction. Initially described as an impossible space, representable only in language, the term has found a wider audience in its definition as a kind of real place that exists outside of all other space. Examples of these semi-mythical sites include the prison, the theatre, the garden, the library, the museum, the brothel, the ship, and the mirror. Here, however, I argue that the heterotopia was never intended as a tool for the study of real urban places, but rather pertains to fictional representations of these sites, which allow authors to open up unthinkable configurations of space.
Specifically, I focus on three writers whose work contains numerous examples of these places, and who shared the circumstance of spending the majority of their lives in exile: James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, and W.G. Sebald. In each case, I argue that these sites figure the experience of exteriority constituted by exile, providing these authors with an alternative perspective from which to perform a particular kind of contestation. In Ulysses, I argue, they allow Joyce to interrogate the notion of a unified Irish identity by bringing into question the space that constitutes the common locus upon which the nation is founded. In Nabokov’s Ada, they help the author to create a world that transcends the discontinuities of his transnational biography, but also serve to contest this unreal world. In Sebald’s fiction, finally, we find a critique of Foucault’s concept. In relation to the Holocaust, he questions the validity of the heterotopia by bringing into doubt the equation of space and thought upon which it is established.
19 citations
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website as discussed by the authors, in case of legitimate complaints the material will be removed.
Abstract: Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.
18 citations
References
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01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: In den verschiedenen Beschreibungen, die der Traum im Laufe der Zeit in Europa von Philosophen, Theologen, Wissenschaftlern, Kunstlern or Traumdeutern erfahren hat, lassen sich einige Konstanten ausmachen.
Abstract: In den verschiedenen Beschreibungen, die der Traum im Laufe der Zeit in Europa von Philosophen, Theologen, Wissenschaftlern, Kunstlern oder Traumdeutern erfahren hat, lassen sich einige Konstanten ausmachen. Unabhangig von jeder Deutung bilden sie annahernd die phanomenologische Bestandsaufnahme einer spezifischen Erscheinung im Leben des Menschen. Diese Konstanten1 werden je nach Epoche unterschiedlich gedeutet und gewichtet bzw. in den Dienst unterschiedlicher Uberlegungen gestellt. So ergibt sich fur das Phanomen Traum generell: Konsensfahige Beobachtungen treffen immer wieder auf zeitspezifische Deutungen. Zu den haufig erwahnten Spezifika des Traums gehoren grundsatzlich: Der Traum als Erfahrungsbereich ist jedem zuganglich und entzieht sich leicht der Erinnerung, ist schwer zu fixieren. Die dem Traum verwandtesten Zustande sind der Wahnsinn oder die Hellseherei. Er zeigt daruber hinaus Analogien zu einer besonderen menschlichen Fahigkeit: der Einbildungskraft.
1 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a kind of "horizontal logic" is proposed, which discards the presupposition on the origin of things, that is, it no longer presumes that this point or that point has greater privilege than others.
Abstract: Metaphysics is a repeated act by way of “representation”; the instantaneous judgment is solidified, the inevitable conclusion is made, and at the same time other possibilities are excluded. “Outside thinking” is a blow to the spiritual tradition of metaphysics, which holds that “representation” will lead to a differential activity concerning the relationship between stranger things. Such relationship follows a kind of “horizontal logic,” the latter discards the presupposition on the “origin” of things, that is, it no longer presumes that this point or that point has greater privilege than “other points.” Things do not develop from a central point. Rather, things are the result of innumerable “points” in cooperative relationships between strangers. These cooperative relationships are arbitrary. In “horizontal logic,” many “starting points” or “spiritual T-points” are used as substitutes for a unique “origin.”
1 citations
TL;DR: Pizarnik used short passages from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843) as hypotexts for the hypertexts of her Sombra poems as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In her poetry, the Argentinean Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-72) persistently explores the transformations that the poetic subject undergoes in language. She articulates a cycle wherein the subject's desire to (re)create herself as a presence in language is followed by the desire for death, the absence of the self, when her desire becomes frustrated by language's inadequacies. As yet, the importance of the theme of the fluctuating self in language as developed by Pizarnik in a series of poems protagonized by Sombra, has not been analyzed. The character Sombra appears in six fragment-like poems published posthumously in Textos de Sombra (1982) and written during the last two years of her life. Pizarnik shows the nature of Sombra's being and non-being in language by implementing two techniques—the palimpsestic technique and the psychological structure of the phantasm. The palimpsestic text is the product of a mode of writing in which a \"hypertext,\" is created through the imitation and/or transformation of an original text, a \"hypotext,\" following the terminology of Gérard Genette. Pizarnik uses short passages from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843) as hypotexts for the hypertexts of her Sombra poems. She also employs a scene from Les Chants de Maldoror (1866), by the Count of Lautréamont (Isidore Ducasse), as an additional hypotext to the Sombra poems. The dynamic of the present and absent self plays a central role in both the palimpsestic technique and the structure of the phantasm. For this reason the two techniques serve Pizarnik to develop the character of Sombra as a representation of the fluctuating subject in language.
1 citations
01 Jan 2018
1 citations