BUCH
Donkeys, Spirits, and Imperial Ladies
Enumeration in Eliot Weinberger’s Essays
American Studies – A Monograph Series, Bd. 251
2014
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Bibliografische Daten
Abstract
Eliot Weinberger’s essays conspicuously rely on an unusual literary device: enumeration. In close readings of selected essays from Weinberger’s work, the author explores the aesthetic effects and functions of this original stylistic strategy, asking how it challenges common ideas about the genre. What happens to the traditional speaking Subject, the ‘essayistic I’, when all the reader gets is a catalogue of bare facts? What does it mean when an essay becomes a repetitive chant, an excessive litany, or a collection of curious words? What kind of knowledge do essays produce when they enumerate? In what sense can enumeration in the essay be thought of as a specific form of cultural critique? As a trigger of constant reflection about the form, the author argues, Weinberger’s use of enumeration becomes a critical enquiry into the poetics of the essay, challenging and at the same time making visible the conventions of the genre.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
| Zwischenüberschrift | Seite | Aktion | Preis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contents | 5 | ||
| Introduction | 7 | ||
| 1 Subjects and Objects | 25 | ||
| 1.1 Objective Enumeration | 25 | ||
| The Showcase Effect | 27 | ||
| Hyper-Description | 45 | ||
| The Return of the I | 52 | ||
| The Impersonal Essay | 63 | ||
| 1.2 Alien Enumeration | 72 | ||
| Celebrations of Disorder | 74 | ||
| The Alien Essay | 81 | ||
| Horror Lists | 88 | ||
| Solidification and Dissolution | 100 | ||
| 2 Accumulation and Reduction | 109 | ||
| 2.1 Abundance | 109 | ||
| Astonishing Enumeration | 110 | ||
| The Kaleidoscopic Essay | 117 | ||
| Cultural Enrichment | 125 | ||
| The Universal Essay | 130 | ||
| 2.2 Overabundance | 140 | ||
| Unimaginable Wealth, Inconceivable Poverty | 142 | ||
| Consumption and Recycling | 147 | ||
| Enumerations of Mass Destruction | 154 | ||
| Accelerating the Essay | 166 | ||
| 2.3 Reduction | 170 | ||
| The Authority of Selection | 172 | ||
| Capsule Enumeration | 178 | ||
| Sameness | 187 | ||
| The Reductive Essay | 195 | ||
| 3 The Past | 203 | ||
| 3.1 History as a List | 203 | ||
| Memorials and Monuments | 204 | ||
| Factuality and Point of View | 216 | ||
| Transformations of Narrative | 227 | ||
| A Poetic Archeology | 240 | ||
| 3.2 Enumeration and Rewriting | 246 | ||
| Radiant Minimal Elements | 249 | ||
| One Form for All | 259 | ||
| Verifiability and Imagination | 268 | ||
| The Montage Essay | 274 | ||
| Conclusion | 281 | ||
| Works Cited | 291 | ||
| Acknowledgements | 305 |
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