Killing the moonlight : modernism in Venice

542 Pages·2014·10.9 MB·English

by  Scappettone

KILLING THE MOONLIGHT
MODERNIST LATITUDES
MODERNIST LATITUDES
Jessica Berman and Paul Saint-Amour, Editors
Modernist Latitudes aims to capture the energy and ferment of modernist studies by continuing to
open up the range of forms, locations, temporalities, and theoretical approaches encompassed by
the field. The series celebrates the growing latitude (“scope for freedom of action or thought”) that
this broadening affords scholars of modernism, whether they are investigating little-known works
or revisiting canonical ones. Modernist Latitudes will pay particular attention to the texts and
contexts of those latitudes (Africa, Latin America, Australia, Asia, Southern Europe, and even the
rural United States) that have long been misrecognized as ancillary to the canonical modernisms
of the global North.
Barry McCrea, In the Company of Strangers: Family and Narrative in Dickens, Conan Doyle,
Joyce, and Proust, 2011
Jessica Berman, Modernist Commitments: Ethics, Politics, and Transnational Modernism, 2011
JENNIFER SCAPPETTONE
KILLING THE MOONLIGHT
Modernism in Venice
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS New York
Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2014 Columbia University Press All rights reserved E-ISBN 978-0-231-53774-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scappettone, Jennifer.
Killing the moonlight : modernism in Venice / Jennifer Scappettone.
pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-16432-0 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-53774-2 (ebook) 1. Venice (Italy)
—In literature—History. 2. Literature, Modern—19th century—History and criticism. 3. Literature,
Modern—20th century—History and criticism. 4. Modernism (Literature) 5. Venice (Italy)—In art—
History. 6. Modernism (Aesthetics) I. Title. II. Title: Modernism in Venice.
PN56.3.V4S38 2014
809'.9335845311—dc23
2014000748
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-
[email protected].
Jacket image: Peter Eisenman, Presentation model including Cannaregio West and Le
Corbusier’s Venice Hospital, gold and pink paint over wood and cardboard, commissioned ca.
1978. Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal.
Jacket design: Noah Arlow References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired
or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
for Joshua, and for love
… quel che lo spettro con la sua voce bianca argomenta è che, se tutte le città e le lingue
d’Europa sopravvivono ormai come fantasmi, solo a chi avrà saputo di questi farsi intimo e
familiare, ricompitarne e mandarne a mente le scarne parole e le pietre, potrà forse un
giorno riaprirsi quel varco, in cui bruscamente la storia—la vita—adempie le sue promesse.
… what the specter argues, with its choirboy-like voice, is that if all the cities and the
languages of Europe now survive only as phantasms, then only to those who have learned
to become intimate and familiar with these phantasms, reciting and committing to memory
their discarnate words and stones, will that breach perhaps one day reopen in which history
—life—abruptly fulfills its promises.
—Giorgio Agamben, “On the Uses and Disadvantages of Living Among Specters”
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Venetian Modernity: A Troubled Present
1. “The Entanglement of Memory”: Reciprocal Interference of Present
and Past in Ruskin’s Venetian Histories
2. Nearer Distances and Clearer Mysteries: Between Patches and
Presence in James’s “Visitable Past”
3. Adriatic Fantasies: Venetian Modernism Between Decadence,
Futurism, and the World Wars
4. From Passéism to Anachronism: Material Histories in Pound’s Venice
5. Fabulous Planning: Unbuilt Venices
Coda: Laguna/Lacuna
Notes
Index
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FRONTISPIECE
“The bombardment of Venice: locations of bombs dropped by Austro-German aircraft” during
World War I, L’Illustration, issue 294, no. 3967 (March 15, 1919).
INTRODUCTION
FIGURE I.1. Bruce Nauman, Venice Fountains, mixed media; two parts, 2007.
FIGURE I.2. Acqua alta of 1.94 meters at Piazzetta San Marco, November 4, 1966: View of the
molo and Column of St. Mark, the Bacino di San Marco, and the Island of San Giorgio
Maggiore.
FIGURE I.3/PLATE A. Image of Venice from the Terra satellite, acquired by NASA in December
2001.
FIGURE I.4. Giorgio Lotti, “Oil Tanker at San Giorgio Maggiore,” photograph from the book
Venezia muore (Venice is Dying), 1970.
FIGURE I.5. Strada Novissima, poster advertising section of 1st Venice International Biennial of
Architecture exhibit, The Presence of the Past, curated by Paolo Portoghesi, with view of
installation at Venetian Arsenal, 1980.
FIGURE I.6. Jacopo de’ Barbari, Venetie (Panoramic Bird’s-Eye View of Venice), woodcut, 1500.
FIGURE I.7/PLATE B. Cupola of the Pentecost, St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, mosaic work, mid-
twelfth century.
FIGURE I.8. “St. Theodore,” sculptural assemblage from the western column at the molo of
Piazzetta San Marco, as exhibited in the Ducal Palace courtyard for preservation.
CHAPTER 1
FIGURE 1.1. John Ruskin, “Moonlight on Venice, from the Lagoon,” The Stones of Venice,
volume II, plate J, 1853.
FIGURE 1.2/PLATE C. Joseph Mallord William Turner, Approach to Venice, oil on canvas, 1844.
FIGURE 1.3. John Ruskin, “Abstract Lines,” The Stones of Venice, volume I, plate 7, 1851.
FIGURE 1.4. John Ruskin, “The Four Venetian Flower Orders,” The Stones of Venice, volume II,
plate X, 1853.
CHAPTER 2