GRADIVA AND THE FOLD
GRADIVA AND THE FOLD

Summary/Abstract: This paper will discuss the aesthetics of the fold in the novel Gradiva, A Pompeiian Fancy by Wilhelm Jensen. The theoretical perspective is that of Gilles Deleuze who discussed the fold in his Le pli. Leibniz et le baroque.The main purpose of this paper is to see the connection between Gradiva and the subconscious in Modernism. What does the figure of Gradiva have to tell us about the ways in which Modernist art and literature have problematized the relations between consciousness and the subconscious, eros and thanatos? This paper concludes that Gradiva represents a figure of the repressed subconscious which appears in the foreground of Modernist aesthetics.

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