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Full Description
This study analyzes the biblical Tower of Babel story, a cautionary tale that accounts for the diversity of languages and peoples, in Russian literature and other topographies. The author pursues its linking of language, architecture, and society as well as its relevance in art and literature over centuries. To come to terms with a perceived disorder in the realm of language, alternative explanations and projects for remediation abound. The disorder and diversity themselves find expression in art, literature, and philosophical reflection and caused the emergence of a historical linguistics. The ambition of the builders—with its social and organizational premise—reemerges in both political and material form as cities, states, and monumental constructions. Utopian aspirations and linguistic claims permeate both revolutionary notions of universality and the romantic essentialism of the nation state. These in turn provoke dystopian critique in literature and film. As Martin Meisel reveals in this study, the wrestle with language in its recalcitrant instability and imperfect social function enters into dialogue with the celebration of its diversity, elasticity, and creativity.
Contents
Preface: A Second Fall
Part I. Words and Things
Chapter 1: Nimrod's Tower.
Chapter 2: Monody and Polyphony
Chapter 3: The Horizon of Etcetera.
Part II: Building the Future
Chapter 4: The Monument and the Labyrinth
Chapter 5: The Electric City
Chapter 6: Public and Private
Chapter 7: After Babel
