The Orient of Style: Modernist Allegories of Conversion 9780822382997

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The Orient of Style

The Orient of Style Modernist Allegories oj Conversion BERYL

SCHLOSSMAN

Duke University Press

Durham and London 1991

© 1991 Duke University Press All righ ts reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 00 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last page of this book.

Contents

Acknowledgments Preface

VII

ix

1

Introduction

2

The Image of Modernity

3

The Allegory of Conversion

4

Necropolis and Carnival:

8

17

Monuments and Masks of Style

5

The Sea of Ink

6

Crimson and Diamonds

7

Passing Forms

8

La Charite de Giotto

9

La Vocation Artistique Notes

291

1°7

143

261

Bibliography Index

71

281

178 225

38

Acknowledgments

At every stage in the writing of this book Josue Harari has been unfailingly generous with criticism, insight, time, and support. My appreciation and my debt to him date from my first encounters with French literature and theory at Cornell University and my studies at the Universite de Paris 7, before the continuation of my work for the Ph. D. under his direction at TheJohns Hopkins University. It is a pleasure to express my thanks to him here. The approach to Proust's labyrinths of modernity began with the seminars of Richard Macksey at The Johns Hopkins University. His criticism, knowledge, and generosity have been present throughout the process of writing this book. I would like to thank him and to acknowledge my debt to him in these pages. I was privileged to have additional close readings of the manuscript from Vincent Descombes, Werner Hamacher, and Neil Hertz, of The Johns Hopkins University, as well as from Marcel Muller and Gerald Prince. For their fine readings and valuable criticism of a later stage of the manuscript, I would like to thank two anonymous readers for Duke University Press. In its earliest stages my research was generously supported by the Department of French of The Johns Hopkins University, by a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, by the Association Fran