Signs Taken for Wonders

A compelling analysis of the relations between high and mass culture, from tragedy and horror to detective fiction and classical realism.

Shakespearean tragedy and Dracula, Sherlock Holmes and Ulysses, Frankenstein and The Waste Land — all are celebrated “wonders” of modern literature, whether in its mandarin or popular form. However, it is the fact that these texts are so central to our contemporary notion of literature that sometimes hinders our ability to understand them. Franco Moretti applies himself to this problem by drawing skilfully on structuralist, sociological and psycho-analytic modes of enquity in order to read these texts as literary systems which are tokens of wider cultural and political realities. In the process, Moretti offers us compelling accounts of various literary genres, explores the relationships between high and mass culture in this century, and considers the relevance of tragic, Romantic and Darwinian views of the world.

“This volume deserves study and debate in our English departments … a superb demonstration of how complex and far-reaching theories can be made to yield lucid and illuminating criticism.” — New Society

“Moretti is a remarkably gifted reader of texts as different as Dracula and Das Kapital, as complex as Ulysses and The Waste Land ... a sheer intelligence animates the pages of Mr Moretti’s work.” — Edward W. Said, New York Times Book Review

Franco Moretti was born in 1950, and currently teaches English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. His other books include The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture and Modern Epic: The World-System from Goethe to Garcia Márquez, An Atlas of the Euopean Novel, 1800-1900, and Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History, all published by Verso.