Archaeologies of Visual Culture

Gazes, Optical Devices and Images from 17th to 20th Century Literature

By (author) Valeria Cammarata By (author) Michele Cometa By (author) Roberta Coglitore

Book cover: Archaeologies of Visual Culture

Extent: 284 pages

Publisher: V&R unipress

Subjects: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(December 2016)

ISBN: 9783847102205

9.33 x 6.3 inches

Price: $82.00

In stock

This book analyzes the interviewing of gazes, optical devices and images in literature. Literary theory has expanded its original field of investigation addressing not only the traditional relationship between the visual and the verbal, but questioning about the influence that gazes, optical devices and images can have on literary texts.This research tries to define the way in which diverse cultures have addressed the question of the scopic regimes of modernity: the gazes of English early modern women writers, the optical devices in the German literature of the age of Hoffmann, and the natural images described by twenty century French authors.


This book analyzes the interplay of gazes, optical devices and images in literature. Following the developments of Visual Culture studies, literary theory has expanded its original field of investigation and addresses, beyond the traditional relationship between the verbal and the visual, the influence that gazes, optical devices and images can have on literary texts. This research tries to define the literary lives of the scopic regimes of modernity: the gazes of English early modern women’s writing, the optical devices in German literature between Classicism and Romanticism, and the images of the mineral world in modern French aesthetics.

  • By (author) Valeria Cammarata
  • By (author) Michele Cometa
  • By (author) Roberta Coglitore