DOCSLIB.ORG

World's Fairs Mis-Sold

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
World's Fairs Mis-Sold Cristina Della Coletta. World's Fairs Italian Style: The Great Exhibitions in Turin and Their Narratives, 1860-1915. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. x + 351 pp. $74.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8020-9115-4. Reviewed by Jonathan Morris Published on H-Urban (September, 2009) Commissioned by Alexander Vari (Marywood University) From the 1851 Great Exhibition at London's economies and consumption systems," Della Co‐ Crystal Palace onward, the World's Fairs interna‐ letta does not discuss the role of Italian World's tional trade expositions fulfilled dual roles as dis‐ Fairs in promoting consumer values or dissemi‐ plays of the latest products of the modern indus‐ nating new products and practices into Italian so‐ trial world and depictions of "national narratives" ciety (p. 4). Rather, her focus throughout the work that underlined the host nation's claim for consid‐ is on the second role of the World's Fairs as propa‐ eration as part of the avant-garde of international gators of national narratives, so that "by examin‐ capitalism. The huge number of visitors that such ing how Italian expositions masterminded Italy's fairs attracted made them as much instruments of process of nation formation from the margins of consumer education and political communication industrialised Europe yet within the ideological as of commercial exchange. As Cristina Della Co‐ context of modern nationalism and imperialism letta rightly recognizes, analyzing the staging of [it] offer[s] ways to individualise and diversify such World's Fairs in Italy, at a time when the what has often been constructed as the West's country was still situated on the edge of the global monolithic and univocal 'discourse of Empire'" (p. economic core, ought to provide a wealth of op‐ 3). portunities for rereading the ways in which Italy's Although this aim is somewhat more limited, initial transition toward a consumer society was it should at least have had the effect of focusing experienced. the analysis. Readers may not be as surprised as Disappointingly, despite acknowledging the Della Coletta appears to be by her fnding that role of World's Fairs as "catalysts of popular taste such expositions also "inspired the development and promoters of mass culture [that] ... gathered of subordinate discourses that challenged the ab‐ all social classes around bourgeois values and solute ideological unity and cultural hegemony drew the lower social strata into modern market that fairs presented" to the point that "hybrid H-Net Reviews scripts criss-crossed the imperial divide, under‐ of the evolution of the formats of World's Fairs in mined the binary logic governing its ethos and general, notably the national and imperial narra‐ shattered the topographical duality implied in the tive themes that were developed within them. The notion of a fxed metropolitan centre governing a Turin national exhibition of 1884 forms the cen‐ silent and subordinated periphery" (p. 5). They terpiece of this analysis, interpreted as an attempt will, however, I suspect, be taken aback by the by the city to "reconfirm [its] status as the cradle fact that it turns out that over half the book con‐ of the Risorgimento and initiator of the process of sists of two chapters deconstructing the colonially nation formation" in the wake of having lost its inspired outputs of two authors, Emilio Salgari status as capital city to Rome, spectacularly em‐ and Guido Gozzano, whose work has no more bodied in the funicular rising from the city to the than a highly tangential link with Italian World's royal mausoleum at Superga (p. 46). At the same Fairs. time, however, "by portraying itself as the Italian The publishers should have known better capital of labour, Turin aspired to share Manches‐ than to have allowed (persuaded?) Della Coletta ter's industrial might and Paris's cultural charis‐ into using a title that is, at best, an inaccurate de‐ ma, and as such expected recognition in Europe," scription of the book's full content from both a de‐ thus attempting "to correct the idea of Italy as the scriptive and disciplinary perspective. This is not country of 'dolce far niente' by adopting what had so much cultural history as literary criticism in‐ become the standard World's Fair tropes of the formed by a historical perspective. These two ap‐ display of work, productivity and competitive proaches are not (whatever their detractors might achievement as visible signs of a nation's standing think) the same. Furthermore, the format for the on civilisation's ladder, alongside a celebration of scholarly apparatus that the publishers have leisure, pleasure and cultural diversion as marks adopted renders the work close to unreadable. of civilized well-being" (p. 23). The many quotations within the text are given in The site of the fair in the Valentino Park will the original Italian with an English translation in‐ be well known to visitors to the city today as the serted immediately afterward in parenthesis, fol‐ location of the faux medieval castle and village lowed by a Harvard style short citation that then built for the exhibition by the architect Alfredo needs to be located in the bibliography. Of course D'Andrade. As Della Coletta presents it, this was textual analysis of translated material needs to be an attempt to rewrite the city's local medieval his‐ verifiable against the original, but using this for‐ tory into a "national past" as an alternative to that mat means that any sense of fow on the page is of Rome, focusing on "reproductions of a canon‐ lost, as the reader is constantly skipping over one ized and concluded world, rather than a colonial or other version of the quotations and has fre‐ reality that was still somewhat fuid" (p. 39). In quently forgotten the beginning of the sentence fact, as her citation from a description of the time by the time s/he reaches the end. Meanwhile, all makes clear, rather more was going on at the cas‐ those references that do not include direct quota‐ tle. She writes: "Workers of the Issel factory from tions take the form of endnotes, which are located Genoa and the Farina factory from Faenza, at the end of the volume. Surely it would have dressed in rough cloth, make terracotta pitchers made sense to have placed the original quotations with a primitive wheel they turn with their foot. here too. At the same time other workers paint vases with The frst of the two chapters that do deal with rough fgures and a blonde heavy-set female vil‐ the World's Fairs is an analysis of expositions in lager takes care of sales. This is the modern world Italy prior to 1911, interspersed with an account that enters the Middle Ages. This is the nineteenth 2 H-Net Reviews century that fantastically returns to the 15th" (p. sior in conjunctions with exhibitions in 1881 and 39). One would have liked, and the author could 1882 respectively), yet there is no mention, let have done, so much more with this: more infor‐ alone any analysis, of Milan's hosting of the mation about the respective factories and their World's Fair in 1906: an inexplicable omission giv‐ products, the workers, the role of contemporary en the objectives of the book. commerce and consumption within this historical Chapter 2 is primarily concerned with the display, and, indeed, the exposition as a whole. staging of the World's Fair in Turin fve years lat‐ Above all, one would have liked to know more er in 1911. The Italian organizers recognized an about the people who bought these items. Accord‐ opportunity for "creating that sense of collective ing to Della Coletta, there were over three million national identity that would overcome (the coun‐ visitors to the exhibition, an extraordinary num‐ try's) endemic regional, historical and cultural ber equivalent to the entire population of Pied‐ fragmentation," while "proposing itself as a viable mont. Who were these people? Why did they member of a larger 'civilisation' of which Great come? How did they consume the exhibits, or Britain and France constituted the models" (p. read the narratives laid out in front of them? On 103). This civilization was exemplified in imperi‐ all of these issues, the book is virtually silent, alism as much as industrialism, leaving Italy making one wonder if the author is not guilty of again anxious to utilize an opportunity to ad‐ casting these visitors as mere "passive readers" of vance its own claims to already be a colonial pow‐ the narratives she wishes to lay out before us. er, even as the military convoys were leaving Similar questions, nearly all to do with issues Turin to secure Italy's "Fourth Shore" in Libya. of context, are raised by consideration of other This was underlined in three exhibits, each em‐ fairs in Italy during the period and the themes phasizing the degree of authority and structure that emerge from these. An analysis of Edmondo within the existing Italian enclaves in Eritrea and De Amicis's 1880 guide to Turin reads more like a Somalia--a notable departure from previous dis‐ formulaic exercise in the application of the theo‐ plays that tended to contrast chaotic native vil‐ ries of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault on the lages with the order of the West. A war exhibit, use of description to sort, categorize, and classify situated close to the Somalian village, featured the urban landscape into "harmonious hierar‐ "indigenous policemen, all cleaned up European chies," rather than investigating the degree of cor‐ style," embodying the success of Italy's colonial relation or contradiction between De Amicis's pre‐ mission (p.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Greece at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1878
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC Quaderns d’Història de l’Enginyeria volum xiii 2012 GREECE AT THE PARIS UNIVERSAL EXHIBITION IN 1878 Konstantinos Chatzis [email protected] Georgia Mavrogonatou [email protected] “Greece is part of the Orient”, one can read in a letter by Jules Ferry, the French ambassador in Athens at the turn of the 1870s1. Ferry’s vision of Greek “otherness” was all but exceptional. The uprising of Greeks against the Ottoman rule in the 1820s aroused waves of sympathy throughout Romantic Europe of the time. It even gave birth to a movement known as Philhellenism, which fought for the cause of the people whose forebears “shaped the mind of Europe”2. But Philhellenism was doomed to live a rather short life, at least as a strong and influential movement3. Indeed, Greece eventually gained its independence in 1832, but the young nation proved unable to honour the expectations vested in it by the Philhellenists’ imagination: to be the equal of Plato, Aeschylus or Pericles was for sure a tough business for the 800.000-odd inhabitants of the Kingdom of Greece, painfully emerging out of a devastated post-war landscape4. Though Philhellenists were not to disappear completely from the European stage, Philhellenism soon lost much of its initial momen- tum. It was rather the numerous contemptuous observers of Modern Greece 1 Quoted by BASCH, Sophie (1995) Le mirage grec. La Grèce moderne devant l’opinion française (1846-1946), Athens, éditions Hatier, 201-202.
    [Show full text]
  • The Transfer of the Exposition Form from Europe to Japan and China: the Case of Jury Awards
    The Transfer of the Exposition Form from Europe to Japan and China: The Case of Jury Awards Jeffer Daykin Though large-scale events bringing merchants from distant lands together in ephemeral marketplaces have existed across cultures for over a millennium, the “exposition” form that emerged from Europe’s Industrial Revolution was qualitatively different than earlier trade fairs. Beyond adding comprehensive arrays of technological innovations to the variety of exhibited products, the events themselves were held for a greater variety of purposes, some of which could be at odds with its functions as a consumer marketplace. Goals of educating the public to inspire continued technological innovation and to inculcate the value of modernizing efforts in society at large were emphasized by the originators of this new exposition form yet the notion of the free exchange of ideas stood in contradiction with the more commercial purposes of the events from their outset. Emerging from this conflict was the feature of jury awards for exhibits which came to be a near requirement for events to be deemed an exposition. By examining the context in which the jury awards element was first incorporated and tracing how it was transformed over time as the exposition form was transferred beyond the West to Japan and China, we can see how the tension between educative and commercial functions of expositions were ultimately resolved in favor of the host-locale’s primary interest. More developed nations like those in the West employed jury awards primarily to confirm the quality of exhibits for commercial purposes while late-developing nations such as Japan and China used jury awards to promote domestic innovation and technology transfer.
    [Show full text]
  • Antirromanticismo E Impresionismo En La Poesía De Guido Gozzano
    Antirromanticismo e impresionismo en la poesía de Guido Gozzano José Muñoz Rivas ([email protected]) UNIVERSIDAD DE EXTREMADURA Resumen Palabras clave Recorrido por las principales líneas de Guido Gozzano la poética de Guido Gozzano, desde la Decadentismo crisis esteticista anterior a La via del Antirromanticismo rifugio (1907), hasta la elaboración y Impresionismo publicación de I Colloqui (1911), y el Naturalismo sucesivo final de la actividad literaria Clasicismo de Gozzano. Se pone de manifiesto la Crepuscularismo tendencia de su poética hacia una poesía anticlasicista y antirromántica, aunque siempre a la sombra de la literatura clasicista y romántica italiana y europea contemporáneas. Abstract Key words A journey through the main lines Guido Gozzano derived from the poetics of Guido Decadentism Gozzano, from the aesthetic crisis prior Anti-romanticism to the publication of La via del rifugio Impressionism (1907), to the composition and Naturalism publication of I Colloqui (1911), and the Classicism subsequent end of Gozzano's literary Crepuscolarism activity. This article evinces the trend of his poetic towards an anti-classicist and anti-romantic poetry, although still remaining in the shade of the classicist and romantic Italian and European AnMal Electrónica 36 (2014) contemporary literatures. ISSN 1697-4239 Una parte dell’attualità di Gozzano consiste nel fatto che egli è alle origini di quel processo di dissolvimento e di ricerche (la «crisi dell’uomo contemporaneo») in sede estetica e in sede spirituale, che non è ancora concluso. Anche se i rapporti fra noi e lui sono lontani e infranti, qualcosa torna a legarci, con diverse corde, a quel processo. (Antonicelli 1982: 101) 12 La poesía de Guido Gozzano AnMal Electrónica 36 (2014) J.
    [Show full text]
  • Japan and the World Expositions As a Tool for Cultural Diplomacy During the Meiji Period
    Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales Grado en Relaciones Internacionales Trabajo Fin de Grado Japan and the World Expositions as a tool for cultural diplomacy during the Meiji Period Estudiante: Elena Molina Urosa Directora: Ana Trujillo Dennis Madrid, abril 2019 Table of content: 1. INTRODUCTION: .............................................................................................................................. 2 2. OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY: ................................................................................................. 3 3. STATE OF PLAY: ............................................................................................................................... 4 4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:........................................................................................................... 6 5. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW: ................................................................................................................ 10 6. MEIJI GOVERNMENT’S STRATEGY FOR BUILDING JAPANESE IDENTITY AND NATIONALIST SENTIMENT: ...................................................................................................................................... 15 6.1. Japan’s domestic policy: ........................................................................................................ 16 6.2. Japan’s foreign policy: ............................................................................................................ 19 7. WORLD EXPOSITIONS: ..................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Towards the Expo 2015
    Towards the Expo 2015 1 Towards the Expo 2015 An Expo is a large international event that aims at the enrichment of human knowledge and technological progress, to promote cooperation and dialogue with international press. Given the importance of these major events, for almost a century now the need has arisen to standardise some aspects, such as duration, frequency and above all quality. The Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), established in 1928 with the International Convention of Paris is the international organisation responsible for establishing the parameters that control the Expo; the objective of the BIE is therefore to guarantee continuity of these events and maintain the level of international prestige earned over the years, selecting venues and dates and organising new Expos. The members of this organisation, with official headquarters in Paris, are all the States that have signed the convention. There are two different types of Expo: "Universal Expositions" (World Expo) and "International Expositions" (International Expo). The Expositions in the first category involve topics that concern the whole of humanity and therefore are global in nature. States, International Organisations, NGOs, Companies and other institutions can participate in these events, there is no limit to the size of the Exposition venue, and participants arrange the set-up of their own pavilions. Since 1996 these events have lasted six months and take place every five years. A Universal Expo will take place in Milan in 2015. 122 On the other hand the “International Expositions" take place in the period between the two Universal Expos and last for three months. The possible participants are the same as for a Universal Expo while the theme is more specific.
    [Show full text]
  • The Crystal Palace and Great Exhibition of 1851
    Gale Primary Sources Start at the source. The Crystal Palace and Great Exhibition of 1851 Ed King British Library Various source media, British Library Newpapers EMPOWER™ RESEARCH The Crystal Palace evokes a response from almost exhibition of 1849 was visited by 100,000 people.2 As the everyone that you meet. Its fame is part of our culture. introduction to the catalogue of the 1846 exhibition The origin of the Crystal Palace lay in a decision made explained: in 1849 by Albert, the Prince Consort, together with a small group of friends and advisers, to hold an international exhibition in 1851 of the industry of all 'We are persuaded that if artistic manufactures are not appreciated, it is because they are not widely enough known. We believe that when nations. This exhibition came to have the title of: 'Great works of high merit, of British origin, are brought forward, they will Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations', be fully appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed. ... this exhibition when normally shortened to 'Great Exhibition'. 3 thrown ... open to all will tend to improve the public taste.' There had been exhibitions prior to the Great Exhibition. This declaration of intent has a prophetic ring about it, These had occurred in Britain and also in France and when we consider what eventually happened in 1851. Germany.1 The spirit of competition fostered by the trade of mass-produced goods between nations created, to some extent, a need to exhibit goods. This, The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in turn, promoted the sale of goods.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cultural Significance of World's Fair Architecture
    The Kentucky Review Volume 2 | Number 1 Article 4 1980 Structuring the Ephemeral: The ulturC al Significance of World's Fair Architecture Raymond F. Betts University of Kentucky Follow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/kentucky-review Part of the Architecture Commons Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits you. Recommended Citation Betts, Raymond F. (1980) "Structuring the Ephemeral: The ulturC al Significance of World's Fair Architecture," The Kentucky Review: Vol. 2 : No. 1 , Article 4. Available at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/kentucky-review/vol2/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Kentucky Libraries at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Kentucky Review by an authorized editor of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Structuring the Ephemeral: The Cultural Significance of World's Fair Architecture Raymond F. Betts For a period of slightly more than one hundred years international expositions created their own majesty as "phantom kingdoms": grandly planned, hastily constructed, greatly admired, quickly forgotten. These "world's fairs" were the emblems of an era confident that its technological achievements would assure greater human progress and international harmony. The ceremonial opening of the Great Exhibition of London was depicted in the Illustrated London News of 3 May 1851 "as the commencement of a new era of peace and good-will." On the occasion of the
    [Show full text]
  • Nebraska in the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, 1876
    Nebraska History posts materials online for your personal use. Please remember that the contents of Nebraska History are copyrighted by the Nebraska State Historical Society (except for materials credited to other institutions). The NSHS retains its copyrights even to materials it posts on the web. For permission to re-use materials or for photo ordering information, please see: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/magazine/permission.htm Nebraska State Historical Society members receive four issues of Nebraska History and four issues of Nebraska History News annually. For membership information, see: http://nebraskahistory.org/admin/members/index.htm Article Title: Nebraska in the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, 1876 Full Citation: Anne P Diffendal, “Nebraska in the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, 1876,” Nebraska History 57 (1976): 69-81. URL of article: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH1976Exh1876.pdf Date: 6/2/2015 Article Summary: After many delays and some hurried final preparations, Nebraska was officially represented at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia marking the one hundredth birthday of the United States. Despite a small population, the youngest state (except for Colorado) made a creditable showing among the other states and territories as well as foreign countries which exhibited. Cataloging Information: Names: Robert W Furnas, Henry S Moody, Daniel H Wheeler, J Sterling Morton, James S Brisbin, W D Scott, Guy C Barton, Charles F Manderson, J R Hawley, Edward Rosewater, Moses
    [Show full text]
  • The Illustrated London News and International Exhibitions
    Gale Primary Sources Start at the source. The Illustrated London News and International Exhibitions Thomas Prasch Washburn University Various source media, Illustrated London News Historical Archive 1842-2003 EMPOWER™ RESEARCH Introduction technology and its attendant material culture. As Asa Briggs famously put it: “In its impressive building and William Whewell, addressing the Society of Arts on the in the wide range of exhibits it offered on display, the results of the Great Exhibition of 1851, compared the Crystal Palace proclaimed triumphantly the visibility of display of works of art and industry contained within the human progress” (Victorian People: A Reassessment of glass walls of the Crystal Palace to a sort of fantastic Persons and Themes, 1851-1867 [1975], 16). And the spectacular photograph: “we may compare the result to lavish and often celebratory coverage of the Great that which would be produced, if we could suppose one Exhibition by the ILN and the rest of the British press of the skilful photographers whose subtle apparatus we contributed in no small way to this perception. But, like have exhibited there, could bring within his field of view many such truisms, this one rather misses the real the surface of the globe, with all its workshops and point, as an examination of the stated aims of the markets, and produce instantaneously a permanent exhibition’s creators clearly shows. For Henry Cole and picture, in which the whole were seen side by side,” his allies (notably including Prince Albert, along with effectively “annihilating the space which separates Owen Jones, Lyon Playfair, Richard Redgrave, and M.
    [Show full text]
  • World's Fairs: 1850- 1900." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 56:3 (Winter 1998/1999): 3-56
    World’s Fairs: A Guide to Selected English-Language Resources Compiled for the Center for the Study of Global Change by Kira Homo John Russell Jason Schultz Claudia Silverman Skye Thomsen Under the Direction of Robert Goehlert Indiana University Bloomington 2005 Table of Contents Reference Sources ........................................................................3 Primary Sources............................................................................ 5 Bibliography Comprehensive Resources (multiple fairs) ................................ 9 Chronological Bibliography (individual fairs) .............................. 18 Index .......................................................................................... 86 1 2 Reference Sources Bertuca, David J., Donald K. Hartman, et al. The World's Columbian Exposition: A Centennial Bibliographic Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996. Burke, Bridget J. “World's Fairs and International Expositions: Selected References 1987-1993.” Fair Representations: World's Fairs and the Modern World. Robert Rydell and Nancy E. Gwinn, eds. Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1994. Cagle, William R., Rebecca Campbell Cape, et al. The Grand Event: International Expositions, 1851-1904. Bloomington: Lilly Library, Indiana University Libraries, 2001. Dybwad, G. L. and Joy V. Bliss. Annotated Bibliography: World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893: Supplement with 440 Illustrations and Price Guide, Master Index for Both Volumes Including Subjects, Master Source List with 140 New Entries, over 3500
    [Show full text]
  • Century of Progress, Horticulture Exhibition
    606.1 Century of Progress International M3TKo Exposition 1933-1934 \ I Ilorticlutural Exhibition and Garden and Flower Show P la^ UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN ILL. HIST. SURVEY GARDEN AN2 FLOWER SHOW HORTICULTURAL BUILDING A CENTURY OF PROGRESS CHICAGO 1933 OUVENIR BOOK TWENTY -FIVE CENTS LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAICN Gift of the Urbana Free Library iZLrwoT8 mnTonwAZ smtt^Y "A garden is a poem come to life and dramatized in all " the glamour and eloquence of T^ature's finest talent. VIEW FACING EXHIBITION- HALL FROM ITALIAN FORMAL GARDEN By Charles Fiore. HOftTICULTUftt A CENTURY OF PROGRESS INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION . • ^(^^^ C H I C A G O ILLINOIS U. S. A. 9 3 3 "J^atUTe has glorified tfie romance of the s\y and the earth and given us her flower gardens." FOREWORD ^Sk^^-^TN"^^ IFE minus its aesthetic values would be barren indeed. '1^^ Though we may often forget the fact, beauty is as essen' tial for our well-being and happiness as are food and shelter and clothing. Fortunately, beauty appears in many forms—in music, in painting, in sculpture, in Ht- erature, and in a thousand glories of Nature. Not only are we moved at twilight by the rose colors of the western sky, or by the sparkling stars that sprinkle the vault of heaven at night, but deep in our beings there is a love for growing things, for living objects that in grace ful forms and lovely colors and with sweet odors spring miraculously from the warm bosom of the soil.
    [Show full text]
  • Rewriting Dante: the Creation of an Author from the Middle Ages to Modernity
    Rewriting Dante: The Creation of an Author from the Middle Ages to Modernity by Laura Banella Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date: _______________ Approved: ___________________________ Martin G. Eisner, Supervisor ___________________________ David F. Bell, III ___________________________ Roberto Dainotto ___________________________ Valeria Finucci Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2018 ABSTRACT Rewriting Dante: The Creation of an Author from the Middle Ages to Modernity by Laura Banella Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date: _________________ Approved: ___________________________ Martin G. Eisner, Supervisor ___________________________ David F. Bell, III ___________________________ Roberto Dainotto ___________________________ Valeria Finucci An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2018 Copyright by Laura Banella 2018 Abstract Rewriting Dante explores Dante’s reception and the construction of his figure as an author in early lyric anthologies and modern editions. While Dante’s reception and his transformation into a cultural authority have traditionally been investigated from the point of view of the Commedia, I argue that these lyric anthologies provide a new perspective for understanding how the physical act of rewriting Dante’s poems in various combinations and with other texts has shaped what I call after Foucault the Dante function” and consecrated Dante as an author from the Middle Ages to Modernity. The study of these lyric anthologies widens our understanding of the process of Dante’s canonization as an author and, thus, as an authority (auctor & auctoritas), advancing our awareness of authors both as entities that generate power and that are generated by power.
    [Show full text]