The Literature of Labor and the Labors of Literature

Abstract

The Literature of Labor and the Labors of Literature juxtaposes representations of labour in fictional texts and non-fictional texts in order to trace the intersections between aesthetic and economic discourse in nineteenth-century America. Both allegory and the new forms of labour produced a version of personhood that seemed frighteningly flat, a flatness that attacked the substance of the work ethic and, indeed, the very foundations of American individualism. Using this contextualized model of allegory, Weinstein argues that texts by Hawthorne, Melville, Twain and Adams are best understood both as allegories of labour (that is, the allegorical representations of the nature and cost of being a labouring being) and labours of allegory (that is, the visibility of the author's work of representation). Weinstein revolutionizes the notion of allegorical narrative, which is exposed as a literary medium of greater depth and consequence than has previously been implied - a working authorial vehicle for engaged and at times socially turbulent thought.

A alegoria benjaminiana em No país das últimas coisas

“…Sugere-se que Anna se encontra em um espaço que, apesar de parecer um futuro distante, de fato faz referência a questões ligadas ao presente imediato. Weinstein 16 afirma que certas figuras alegóricas demonstram um novo conceito de realismo, segundo o qual aquilo que parece remoto está perigosamente próximo daquilo que, de fato, é vivido. Seria uma espécie de provável futuro próximo para o mundo atual.…”