Signs Taken for Wonders: On the Sociology of Literary Forms

By Franco Moretti

Book Overview

Shakespearean tragedy and Dracula , Sherlock Holmes and Ulysses , Frankenstei and The Waste Land --all are celebrated "wonders" of modern literature, whether in its mandarin or popular form. However, it is the fact that these texts are so central to our contemporary notion of literature that sometimes hinders our ability to understand them. Franco Moretti applies himself to this problem by drawing skillfully on structuralist, sociological and psycho-analytic modes of enquity in order to read these texts as literary systems which are tokens of wider cultural and political realities. In the process, Moretti offers us compelling accounts of various literary genres, explores the relationships between high and mass culture in this century, and considers the relevance of tragic, Romantic and Darwinian views of the world.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0860919064
• ISBN13: 9780860919063
• Release Date: May 1988
• Publisher: Verso
• Length: 324 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

fantastic insight into the European novel

All of Franco Moretti's in-class charm and wit is demonstrated in this series of essays on various forms of the European novel. He does a fantastic job of legitimizing not only popular texts, such as Dracula and the Sherlock Holmes series, but also the field of literary criticism itself. He makes a compelling argument for not only the profound effect that society has had in forming literary trends, but also literature's role in shaping society. His essay on Tragedy in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama contains some particularly fascinating insights into this phenomenon. While written in a colloquial tone, some essays can come across overly mandarin at times. Get through the first and most difficult essay, 'The Soul and the Harpy', and the rest will be smooth sailing. He makes his field seem almost, dare I say, 'cool'.