Writing in Parts: Imitation and Exchange in Nineteenth-Century Literature

Kevin Mclaughlin

ISBN 10: 0804724113 / ISBN 13: 9780804724111

Published by Stanford University Press, 1995

About this Item

Proposing a new interpretation of literature and mass culture in nineteenth-century Europe, this book focuses on works by Marx, Balzac, Dickens, Adorno, and Benjamin to explore in them a complex "mimetic" disposition toward commodification in the realm of culture. Num Pages: 188 pages, 2 half-tones. BIC Classification: DSBF. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational; (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly; (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 224 x 146 x 23. Weight in Grams: 408. . 1995. 1st Edition. Hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780804724111

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Writing in Parts: Imitation and Exchange in Nineteenth-Century Literature
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0804724113
• ISBN 13: 9780804724111
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Proposing a new interpretation of literature and mass culture in nineteenth-century Europe, this work focuses on works by Marx, Balzac, Dickens, Adorno, and Benjamin to explore in them a complex "mimetic" disposition toward commodification in the realm of culture. The aim of the book is twofold: to explicate in the work of Balzac and Dickens subtle and profoundly ambivalent attitudes toward the rapidly expanding mass culture of the 1830's in France and England, and to identify through this reading of the novelists a common mimetic element that has eluded a certain dialectical approach to art's overcoming of mass culture - an approach best exemplified in Horkheimer and Adorno's influential essay on the "culture industry."

About the Author

Kevin McLaughlin is Assistant Professor of English at St. John's University.