Czytając rzeczy. (Z angielskiego przełożyła Joanna Sadowska)
Reading Things. (Translated from the English by Joanna Sadowska)

Summary/Abstract: The Victorian novel is brimming with things. Little critical attention has been so far drawn to their perplexingly complex meaning. Elaine Freedgood’s leading assumption in The Ideas in Things is that the things of realism are not merely realistic objects, but rather unexplored treasure troves of critical cultural knowledge. In her book, Freedgood “reads” objects with imperial and industrial histories in three Victorian novels. She analyses the meaning of mahogany furniture in Jane Eyre, calico curtains in Mary Barton and “Negro head” tobacco in Great Expectations. By employing Barthes’s concept of the reality effect and the contemporary theoretical perspectives on metonymy, as well as the Marxian notion of the commodity fetish, Freedgood looks into and portrays the characteristics of the Victorian thing culture.

• Details
• Contents