The open work

Author(s)
Bibliographic Information

The open work

Umberto Eco ; translated by Anna Cancogni ; with an introduction by David Robey

Harvard University Press, c1989

  • : hard
  • : pbk

Other Title

Opera aperta

Apocalittici e integrati

La struttura assente

Lettere italiane

La definizione dell'arte

Quindici

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Note

Translation of: Opera aperta, and other essays

Includes bibliographical references (p. [251]-275) and index

Description and Table of Contents
Volume

: hard ISBN 9780674639751

Description

More than twenty years after its original appearance in Italian, The Open Work remains significant for its powerful concept of openness--the artist's decision to leave arrangements of some constituents of a work to the public or to chance--and for its striking anticipation of two major themes of contemporary literary theory: the element of multiplicity and plurality in art, and the insistence on literary response as an interactive process between reader and text. The questions Umberto Eco raises, and the answers he suggests, are intertwined in the continuing debate on literature, art, and culture in general. This entirely new edition, edited for the English-language audience with the approval of Eco himself, includes an authoritative introduction by David Robey that explores Eco's thought at the period of The Open Work, prior to his absorption in semiotics. The book now contains key essays on Eco's mentor Luigi Pareyson, on television and mass culture, and on the politics of art. Harvard University Press will publish separately and simultaneously the extended study of James Joyce that was originally part of The Open Work, entitled The Aesthetics of Chaosmos: The Middle Ages of James Joyce. The Open Work explores a set of issues in aesthetics that remain central to critical theory, and does so in a characteristically vivid style. Eco's convincing manner of presenting ideas and his instinct for the lively example are threaded compellingly throughout. This book is at once a major treatise in modern aesthetics and an excellent introduction to Eco's thought.
Volume

: pbk ISBN 9780674639768

Description

More than twenty years after its original appearance in Italian, The Open Work remains significant for its powerful concept of "openness"--the artist's decision to leave arrangements of some constituents of a work to the public or to chance--and for its striking anticipation of two major themes of contemporary literary theory: the element of multiplicity and plurality in art, and the insistence on literary response as an interactive process between reader and text. The questions Umberto Eco raises, and the answers he suggests, are intertwined in the continuing debate on literature, art, and culture in general. This entirely new edition, edited for the English-language audience with the approval of Eco himself, includes an authoritative introduction by David Robey that explores Eco's thought at the period of The Open Work, prior to his absorption in semiotics. The book now contains key essays on Eco's mentor Luigi Pareyson, on television and mass culture, and on the politics of art. Harvard University Press will publish separately and simultaneously the extended study of James Joyce that was originally part of The Open Work, entitled The Aesthetics of Chaosmos: The Middle Ages of James Joyce. The Open Work explores a set of issues in aesthetics that remain central to critical theory, and does so in a characteristically vivid style. Eco's convincing manner of presenting ideas and his instinct for the lively example are threaded compellingly throughout. This book is at once a major treatise in modern aesthetics and an excellent introduction to Eco's thought.

Table of Contents

1. The Poetics of the Open Work 2. Analysis of Poetic Language 3. Openness, Information, Communication 4. The Open Work in the Visual Arts 5. Chance and Plot: Television and Aesthetics 6. Form as Social Commitment 7. Form and Interpretation in Luigi Pareyson's Aesthetics 8. Two Hypotheses about the Death of Art 9. The Structure of Bad Taste 10. Series and Structure 11. The Death of the Gruppo 63 Notes Index

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