Writers' Houses and the Making of Memory

Description

This innovative new book examines the ways in which writers’ houses contribute to the making of memory. It shows that houses built or inhabited by poets and novelists both reflect and construct the author’s private and artistic persona; it also demonstrates how this materialized process of self-fashioning is subsequently appropriated within various strategies and policies of cultural memory.

Contents

1. Introduction : Writers’ Houses as Media of Expression and Remembrance: From Self-Fashioning to Cultural Memory -- Harald Hendrix; 2. The Early Modern Invention of Literary Tourism: Petrarch’s Houses in France and Italy -- Harald Hendrix; 3. Shakespeare’s Birthplace in Stratford: Bardolatry Reconsidered -- Michael Rosenth; 4. Remembrance and Revision: Goethe’s Houses in Frankfurt and Weimar -- Bodo Plachta; 5. Goethe’s Home in the "First City of the World": The Making of the Casa di Goethe -- Dorothee Hock; 6. Abbotsford: Dislocation and Cultural Remembrance -- Ann Rigney; 7. Myth and Memory: Reading the Brontë Parsonage -- Christine Alexander; 8. Memory Regained: Founding and Funding the Keats Shelley Memorial House in Rome -- Catherine Payling; 9. The Rooms of Memory: The Praz Museum in Rome -- Paola Colaiacomo; 10. Casa Vasari in Arezzo: Writing and Decorating the Artist’s House -- Ben Thomas; 11. In Vasto and in London: The Rossettis’ Houses as Mirrors of Dislocated National Identities -- Paola Spinozzi; 12. William Morris’s Houses and the Shaping of Aesthetic Socialism -- Vita Fortunati; 13. Memories of Exotism and Empire: Henry Rider Haggard’s Wunderkammer at Ditchingham House -- Marilena Parlati; 14. "La Maison d'un artiste": The Goncourts, Bibelots and Fin de Siècle Interiority -- Claire O'Mahony; 15. Collecting and Autobiography: A Note on the Origins of "La Casa della vita" by Mario Praz and its Relation to Edmond de Goncourt’s "La Maison d’un artiste" -- Patrizia Rosazza Ferraris; 16. A Nomadic Investment in History: Pierre Loti’s House at Rochefort-sur-Mer -- Stephen Bann; 17. "Une chambre mentale": Proust’s Solitude -- Jon Kear; 18. Epilogue; The Appeal of Writers’ Houses: "That Moment of Contact -- Practical Yet Mystical -- Between Writer and Reader" -- Harald Hendrix; Bibliography; Contributors; Index

Author Bio

Harald Hendrix is Professor of Italian Studies and heads the program of Renaissance Studies at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Related Subjects

1. Museum & Heritage Studies
2. Cultural Studies
3. Literature