04090nam 22008055 450 991068254440332120240506163405.0978150171590715017159099781501715938150171593310.1515/9781501715938(CKB)4340000000260341(OCoLC)1019834442(MdBmJHUP)muse65785(DLC) 2017061791(StDuBDS)EDZ0001929464(MiAaPQ)EBC5321344(DE-B1597)496507(DE-B1597)9781501715938(Perlego)547220(oapen)doab99283(EXLCZ)99434000000026034120191126d2018 fg engur|||||||nn|ntxtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierThe Chain of Things Divinatory Magic and the Practice of Reading in German Literature and Thought, 1850-1940 /Eric Downing1st ed.IthacaCornell University Press2018Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]©20181 online resourceSignale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and ThoughtPreviously issued in print: 2018.9781501715914 1501715917 9781501715921 1501715925 Includes bibliographical references and index.Frontmatter -- Index -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Painting Magic in Keller's Green Henry -- 2. Speaking Magic in Fontane's The Stechlin -- 3. Reading Magic in Walter Benjamin -- Notes -- Works Cited -- IndexIn The Chain of Things, Eric Downing shows how the connection between divinatory magic and reading shaped the experience of reading and aesthetics among nineteenth-century realists and modernist thinkers. He explores how writers, artists, and critics such as Gottfried Keller, Theodor Fontane, and Walter Benjamin drew on the ancient practice of divination, connecting the Greek idea of sympathetic magic to the German aesthetic concept of the attunement of mood and atmosphere.Downing deftly traces the genealogical connection between reading and art in classical antiquity, nineteenth-century realism, and modernism, attending to the ways in which the modern re-enchantment of the world-both in nature and human society-consciously engaged ancient practices that aimed at preternatural prediction. Of particular significance to the argument presented in The Chain of Things is how the future figured into the reading of texts during this period, a time when the future as a narrative determinant or article of historical faith was losing its force. Elaborating a new theory of magic as a critical tool, Downing secures crucial links between the governing notions of time, world, the "real," and art.Signale (Ithaca, N.Y.)Aesthetics, German20th centuryAesthetics, German19th centuryMagic in literatureDivination in literatureBooks and readingGermanyHistory20th centuryBooks and readingGermanyHistory19th centuryGerman literature20th centuryHistory and criticismGerman literature19th centuryHistory and criticismElectronic books. Aesthetics, GermanAesthetics, GermanMagic in literature.Divination in literature.Books and readingHistoryBooks and readingHistoryGerman literatureHistory and criticism.German literatureHistory and criticism.830.9/008Downing Eric, authttp://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut607469DE-B1597DE-B1597BOOK9910682544403321The Chain of Things3086969UNINA