Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Czegledi, Aurora

Titel

Anamorphic Perspective in Quevedo's Prose

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2006

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In the field of the visual arts anamorphosis (a forming anew, from the Gr. "ana", again, and "morphoun", to form), is a technique of perspective employed to produce a distorted image that will look normal when viewed from a particular angle or with a special mirror. A by-product of Leonardo da Vinci's investigation of oblique images and wide-angle views, this technique was widely used by artists throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In the Spanish political and religious context of that era, characterized by the Counterreformation, the Inquisition, and absolutist monarchy, picture-puzzles based on anamorphic techniques were often symbolic compositions which embodied concealed meanings of a political, religious or erotic nature. Since artists and writers constantly perceived and created connections among the arts, anamorphosis was also used as a literary technique. Following his stay in Italy (1613-1620), the Spanish writer Francisco de Quevedo employed anamorphic techniques both as textual and as reading strategies. His menipean satire, La Hora de todos y la Fortuna con seso, includes chapters whose characteristics are similar to various types of anamorphic images: beneath the main theme there is at least one other hidden complementary theme which reveals itself to the actively participating reader. Quevedo first creates his reader's competency through an anamorphic lesson that points to Emanuele Tesauro's Cannocchiale aristotelico, a theoretical work that describes both visual and semantic anamorphic strategies as part of the aesthetics of wit. In his historical and political writings Quevedo converts anamorphic techniques into a tool for interpreting foreign works and sacred texts. He does so from what he considers the appropriate intellectual angle: his own political expertise and Neostoic philosophy, so that the reader can perceive the truth beneath the appearances. The eight chapters of the dissertation investigate anamorphic strategies and the themes revealed by them through analysis of selected works of Quevedo and the application of Iser's theory of the aesthetic response.