Decay and Afterlife: Form, Time, and the Textuality of Ruins, 1100 to 1900

311 Pages·2022·4.95 MB·English

by  Aleksandra Prica

Decay and Afterlife

Decay and Afterlife
Form, Time, and the Textuality
of Ruins, 1100 to 1900
aleksandra prica
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2022 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
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the University of Chicago Press, 1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2022
Printed in the United States of America
31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-1 3: 978- 0- 226- 81131-4 (cloth)
isbn-1 3: 978- 0- 226- 81159- 8 (paper)
isbn-1 3: 978- 0- 226- 81145- 1 (e- book)
doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226811451.001.0001
The University of Chicago Press gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the
Schwab Academic Excellence Award of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill toward the publication of this book.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Prica, Aleksandra, author.
Title: Decay and afterlife : form, time, and the textuality of ruins, 1100
to 1900 / Aleksandra Prica.
Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2022. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2021019307 | isbn 9780226811314 (cloth) |
isbn 9780226811598 (paperback) | isbn 9780226811451 (ebook)
Subjects: lcsh: Antiquities in literature. | Ruins in literature. |
European literature—History and criticism.
Classification: lcc pn56.a67 p75 2022 | ddc 809/.93358—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021019307
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1 992 (Permanence of Paper).
For my parents
A grey wall, a green ruin, rusty pike,
Make my soul pass the equinoctial line
Between the present and past worlds, and hover
Upon their airy confine, half- seas-o ver.
lord byron, Don Juan
Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
i Foundations
1 Among Ruins: Martin Heidegger and Sigmund Freud 29
2 Afterlife: Hans Blumenberg and Walter Benjamin 48
ii The Propitious Moment
3 Petrarch and the View of Rome 77
4 Poliphilo and the Dream of Ruins 112
iii Living On
5 Ferdinand Gregorovius, Hildebert of Lavardin, and the
Rupture of Continuity 133
6 Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Martin Opitz, and the
Overcoming of Vanity 162
iv The Battleground of Time
7 Johann Jacob Breitinger, Andreas Gryphius, and the
Reconsideration of Allegory 189
8 Thomas Burnet, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and the
Realignment of Discourses 207
v Futures and Ruins
9 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Georg Simmel, and the
Provisionality of Forms 233
Epilogue 258
Acknowledgments 269
Bibliography 273
Index 293
Figures
1 Poliphilo among the ruins in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) 124
2 The pyramid in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) 125
3 Fragments in the ruined temple of deceased lovers seen by
Poliphilo in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) 128
4 Ex bello pax detail, pictura (image), in Andrea Alciato,
Emblemata (1621) 203
5 Ex bello pax detail, subscriptio (epigram), in Andrea Alciato,
Emblemata (1621) 203
6 Ex bello pax, pictura and subscriptio, in Andrea Alciato,
Emblemata (1531) 204
7 Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, Goethe in der römischen Campagna
(1787) 236
8 Michigan Central Station in Detroit (2015) 262