Archaeologies of Visual Culture: Gazes, Optical Devices and Images from 17th to 20th Century Literature [Hardcover]

This book analyzes the interplay of gazes, optical devices and images in literature. Following the developments of Visual Culture studies, literary theory has expanded its original field of investigation and addresses, beyond the traditional relationship between the verbal and the visual, the influence that gazes, optical devices and images can have on literary texts. This research tries to define the literary lives of the scopic regimes of modernity: the gazes of English early modern women's writing, the optical devices in German literature between Classicism and Romanticism, and the images of the mineral world in modern French aesthetics.This book analyzes the interviewing of gazes, optical devices and images in literature. Literary theory has expanded its original field of investigation addressing not only the traditional relationship between the visual and the verbal, but questioning about the influence that gazes, optical devices and images can have on literary texts.This research tries to define the way in which diverse cultures have addressed the question of the scopic regimes of modernity: the gazes of English early modern women writers, the optical devices in the German literature of the age of Hoffmann, and the natural images described by twenty century French authors.Prof Dr Valeria Cammarata teaches Comparative Literature, Visual Culture and Cultural Studies at the University of Palermo. Prof Dr Michele Cometa teaches Comparative Literature and Visual Culture at the University of Palermo. His research focuses on German cultural history and aesthetics, literary theory, and visual culture. Prof Dr Roberta Coglitore teaches Theory of Literature at the University of Palermo. Her research fields are the relationship between literature and visual culture and between literature and mineral world; fantastic literature, studies on the imaginary.