Baroque Fictions

Baroque Fictions
Author: Margaret Elizabeth Colvin
Publisher: Rodopi
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2005
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9042018380

This volume is the first in-depth study of the French novelist Marguerite Yourcenar's fiction to contend that the author's texts exhibit in unexpected ways numerous characteristics of the neobaroque. This subversive, postmodern aesthetic privileges extravagant artistic play, flux, and heterogeneity. In demonstrating the affinity of Yourcenar's texts with the neobaroque, the author of this study casts doubt on their presumed transparency and stability, qualities associated with the French neoclassical tradition of the past century, where the Yourcenarian oeuvre is most often placed. Yourcenar's election to the prestigious, tradition-bound French Academy in 1981 as its first female "immortal" cemented her already well-established niche in the twentieth-century French literary pantheon. A self-taught classicist, historian, and modern-day French moralist, Yourcenar has been praised for her polished, "classical" style and analyzed for her use of myth and universal themes. While those factors at first seem to justify amply the neoclassical label by which Yourcenar is most widely recognized, this study's close reading of four of her fictions reveals instead the texts' opacity and subversive resistance to closure, their rejection of stable interpretations, and their deconstruction of postmodern Grand Narratives. Theirs is a neobaroque "logic," which stresses the absence of theoretical assurances and the limitations of reason. The coincidence of the new millennium -- which in so many ways reflects Yourcenar's disquieting vision -- and her centenary in 2003 affords not so much an excuse to reject the author's neoclassical label, but rather the obligation to reassess it in light of contemporary discourses. This study will be of interest to students of twentieth-century French fiction and comparative literature, especially that of the latter half of the twentieth century.

The Inordinate Eye

The Inordinate Eye
Author: Lois Parkinson Zamora
Publisher:
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2006
Genre: Art
ISBN:

"The Inordinate Eye traces the Baroque from a European colonizing instrument encoding Catholic and monarchical ideologies to a New World instrument of resistance to those same structures. Lois Parkinson Zamora shows that in the early decades of the twentieth century Latin American writers began to recuperate the hybrid forms of New World Baroque art and architecture for the purpose of creating a discourse of "counterconquest" - that is, a discourse of postcolonial self-definition aimed at disrupting entrenched power structures, perceptual categories, and literary forms."--BOOK JACKET.

The Confusion

The Confusion
Author: Neal Stephenson
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 878
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0061793388

In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves -- including one Jack Shaftoe, aka King of the Vagabonds, aka Half-Cocked Jack -- devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues -- a perilous race for an enormous prize of silver ... nay, gold ... nay, legendary gold. In Europe, the exquisite and resourceful Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, is stripped of her immense personal fortune by France's most dashing privateer. Penniless and at risk from those who desire either her or her head (or both), she is caught up in a web of international intrigue, even as she desperately seeks the return of her most precious possession. Meanwhile, Newton and Leibniz continue to propound their grand theories as their infamous rivalry intensifies, stubborn alchemy does battle with the natural sciences, dastardly plots are set in motion ... and Daniel Waterhouse seeks passage to the Massachusetts colony in hopes of escaping the madness into which his world has descended. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Quicksilver

Quicksilver
Author: Neal Stephenson
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0061792772

Quicksilver is the story of Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and conflicted Puritan, pursuing knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe, in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight. It is a chronicle of the breathtaking exploits of "Half-Cocked Jack" Shaftoe -- London street urchin turned swashbuckling adventurer and legendary King of the Vagabonds -- risking life and limb for fortune and love while slowly maddening from the pox. And it is the tale of Eliza, rescued by Jack from a Turkish harem to become spy, confidante, and pawn of royals in order to reinvent Europe through the newborn power of finance. A gloriously rich, entertaining, and endlessly inventive novel that brings a remarkable age and its momentous events to vivid life, Quicksilver is an extraordinary achievement from one of the most original and important literary talents of our time. And it's just the beginning ...

The Violinist of Venice

The Violinist of Venice
Author: Alyssa Palombo
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2015-12-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466882638

Like most 18th century Venetians, Adriana d'Amato adores music—except her strict merchant father has forbidden her to cultivate her gift for the violin. But she refuses to let that stop her from living her dreams and begins sneaking out of her family's palazzo under the cover of night to take violin lessons from virtuoso violinist and composer Antonio Vivaldi. However, what begins as secret lessons swiftly evolves into a passionate, consuming love affair. Adriana's father is intent on seeing her married to a wealthy, prominent member of Venice's patrician class—and a handsome, charming suitor, whom she knows she could love, only complicates matters—but Vivaldi is a priest, making their relationship forbidden in the eyes of the Church and of society. They both know their affair will end upon Adriana's marriage, but she cannot anticipate the events that will force Vivaldi to choose between her and his music. The repercussions of his choice—and of Adriana's own choices—will haunt both of their lives in ways they never imagined. Spanning more than 30 years of Adriana's life, Alyssa Palombo's The Violinist of Venice is a story of passion, music, ambition, and finding the strength to both fall in love and to carry on when it ends.

Questing Fictions

Questing Fictions
Author: Djelal Kadir
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 190
Release: 1986
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0816615160

Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible to scholars, students, researchers, and general readers. Rich with historical and cultural value, these works are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. The books offered through Minnesota Archive Editions are produced in limited quantities according to customer demand and are available through select distribution partners.

American Baroque

American Baroque
Author: Molly A. Warsh
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2018-03-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1469638983

Pearls have enthralled global consumers since antiquity, and the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella explicitly charged Columbus with finding pearls, as well as gold and silver, when he sailed westward in 1492. American Baroque charts Spain's exploitation of Caribbean pearl fisheries to trace the genesis of its maritime empire. In the 1500s, licit and illicit trade in the jewel gave rise to global networks, connecting the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean to the pearl-producing regions of the Chesapeake and northern Europe. Pearls—a unique source of wealth because of their renewable, fungible, and portable nature—defied easy categorization. Their value was highly subjective and determined more by the individuals, free and enslaved, who produced, carried, traded, wore, and painted them than by imperial decrees and tax-related assessments. The irregular baroque pearl, often transformed by the imagination of a skilled artisan into a fantastical jewel, embodied this subjective appeal. Warsh blends environmental, social, and cultural history to construct microhistories of peoples' wide-ranging engagement with this deceptively simple jewel. Pearls facilitated imperial fantasy and personal ambition, adorned the wardrobes of monarchs and financed their wars, and played a crucial part in the survival strategies of diverse people of humble means. These stories, taken together, uncover early modern conceptions of wealth, from the hardscrabble shores of Caribbean islands to the lavish rooms of Mediterranean palaces.

Fictions of the Self, 1550-1800

Fictions of the Self, 1550-1800
Author: Arnold Weinstein
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2014-07-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1400857384

The author charts the interaction between self and world through four major phases whereby the self initially has marginal status (the picaresque), begins to flourish and court recognition (Defoe, Marivaux, and Fielding), glows defiant and tries to impose its will on society and the other (Prevost, Richardson, Goethe, and Laclos), and finally makes a prophetic inward turn (Diderot, Sterne, and Rousseau). He shows how these phases also reflect the development of literature as it moves from mimetic to generative fiction, from the power of gesture to that of word. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Carpentier's Baroque Fiction

Carpentier's Baroque Fiction
Author: Steve Wakefield
Publisher: Tamesis Books
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2004
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781855661073

Carpentier was one of the first novelists to introduce a version of magical realism and the neo-baroque into Latin American fiction. This study focuses on one of the first novelists to introduce a version of magical realism and the neo-baroque into Latin American fiction. Original research colours eyewitness accounts of Alejo Carpentier's travels through Spainbefore and during the Spanish Civil War and the inspiration that he drew from the Baroque architecture he encountered there. The origins of Carpentier's uniquely 'baroque' style are found in his endeavour to create a period ambience in his historical fictions through descriptions of visual arts and architectural settings, and parodies of the literary style of Spanish Golden Age writers. 'Medusa's gaze' is used as a metaphor for the petrifying power of theBaroque as a weapon of European dominance. By wielding the same weapon in an act of postcolonial defiance, Carpentier enabled a reassertion of Latin American culture, and laid the foundations for the 1960s 'Boom' in the Latin American novel. STEVE WAKEFIELD is Visiting Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales, Australia

The Fiction of Relationship

The Fiction of Relationship
Author: Arnold Weinstein
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2014-07-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1400859646

"A clear and straightforward discussion of the ways in which literatures and their comparative study must depend upon the problematics of interpersonal and other relations. . . . This study will prove as useful as it is wide-ranging, and indeed, comparative in the good sense."--Mary Ann Caws, Graduate School, City University of New York "Here is a comparatist working at the peak of his powers. . . . Weinstein moves easily from Goethe and Flaubert to Kafka or Joyce or Boris Vian. Locating fictions of relationship `at the heart of both literary criticism and human affairs' and acknowledging his own `distinctly humanistic' concerns, Weinstein writes in an urgent tone and eloquent voice, inflecting the theme of `relationship' in every way: in its surrender to the erotic, its frenzied drive for control of the Other, in its ability to confer identity or eclipse difference. . . . When he couples texts (e.g., William Burrough's Naked Lunch and C. de Laclos's Les liaisons dangereuses), he takes risks that bear brilliant fruit. Exploring famous texts and relatively unknown ones, Weinstein infuses the traditional study of fiction with new energy."--Choice Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.