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oapen-20.500.12657-621602024-03-27T14:14:47Z The Chain of Things Downing, Eric German realism, German modernism, Gottfried Keller, Theodor Fontane, Walter Benjamin thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DS Literature: history and criticism::DSB Literary studies: general::DSBF Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 In 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. 2023-03-29T15:51:34Z 2023-03-29T15:51:34Z 2018 book ONIX_20230329_9781501715938_144 9781501715938 9781501715921 9781501715907 9781501715914 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/62160 eng Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought application/pdf Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International 9781501715938.pdf http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501715907/the-chain-of-things Cornell University Press Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library 06a447d4-1d09-460f-8b1d-3b4b09d64407 9781501715938 9781501715921 9781501715907 9781501715914 Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library 366 Ithaca open access
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In 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.
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