Within Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Marco Polo recalls from memory cities he has visited and explored. While reciting his accounts to Kublai Khan, the reader views each city as an entity of its own. Small anecdotes from Kublai Khan insist that he views the individual experiences as small fragments of one, singular city. Kublai Khan’s reinterpretation of Marco Polo’s experiences change the meaning behind Marco Polo’s experiences whether they be from multiple cities or an implicit city divided up into many moments. The reader’s perspective on Marco Polo’s stories changes with a second look by Kublai Khan, a revised point of view.
The individual experiences of Marco Polo are laid out into separate cities with a unique element. His accounts describe cities with arches or canals, like spider webs or filled with skyscrapers, all very different yet still two may be connected in a way. Each individual recitation of a city is important to the moment in which Marco experienced it. The “city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea,” each varying greatly in the approach of the explorer (Calvino 17). With different first glances at a city, the experience one has with a city is very distinctive. First experiences set a tone for city, and the moments an explorer would share on land or at sea would be polar opposites. The moment where Marco Polo first experienced a city dictated the tone of the new place. The experience the reader has of Marco Polo’s accounts are dependent upon the diction and style he tells of his journeys. A relationship with a moment is a direct reaction of past memories.
Marco Polo’s view of the world is based upon what he compares each moment to when...
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...ader may not catch on to Kublai Khan’s point of view. A second point of view is necessary to see this connected thread throughout Polo’s ‘journey.’ In conversation with Marco Polo, Kublai Khan defines the journey he talks about “so then, yours is truly a journey through memory” (Calvino 98). A journey through memories directly breaks up the idea that each ‘city’ is an individual place. The memories that comprise this journey are places themselves within Venice. Various experiences make up Marco experiences at different instances within Venice. The interweaving style of these memories builds a single city that gathers important details from the past. Without reflection upon the past, the importance and significance of places within the memory of Polo may not be significant enough to recall.
Italo Calvino . Invisible Cities, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978
Plan: Compares and contrasts America and Venice in each body paragraph to show how similar the two places are. Uses specific examples and places modern examples in a Venetian context to strengthen the connection. Shows that this comparison helps support the idea that America might be following the same path that Venice did.
The setting is London in 1854, which is very different to anything we know today. Johnson’s description of this time and place makes it seem like a whole other world from the here and now....
In 2013, just shy of my 17th birthday, I planned a day trip with two of my friends to see The Phantom of the Opera in New York. At this point in my life, I was entirely unaccustomed to large cities, such as New York City, and felt excited to experience the bustle I expected. While in the city, a woman informed me about methods to avoid the crime so intertwined with life in the city and introduced me to the concept that, just as New York City held many attractions for tourists, it also held some dangers as well. This idea takes pride of place in Edward Jones’ short story, “Young Lions” and its discussion of Caesar Matthews. As I learned a few years ago, the city truly contains amazement for those experiencing it, but, like all things in life,
Marco Polo was known as “the Fabricator”. His friends and family believed him to be a compulsive liar. However, he did tell the truth at some points. For example, he claimed to see a unicorn (though not as elegant as he expected). In reality, it was a rhinoceros, and this adds to the assumption that he is a “Fabricator” by his own colleagues and family. Though this is a truth, Marco Polo sometimes lies and states that some myths and heresy is true. Many of his stories were considered fairytales. He stated that he saw massive birds swooping down and picking up elephants. These giant birds would then drop the elephant from a high altitude and then devour what remained of the elephant.
The city, writes St. Augustine, “builds up a pilgrim community of every language .... [with] particular concern about differences of customs, laws, [and] institutions” in which “there is among the citizens a sort of coherence of human wills.”3 Put simply: the city is a sort of platform upon which “a group of people joined together by their love of the same object” work towards a common goal.4 What differentiates Augustine’s examination from other literary or theological treatments of the city is his attempt to carve out a vision of how the city operates—both the internal qualities and external ...
When looking at these pieces, it is best to use certain modes of analysis. Levine made art that showed how corrupt and unjust he felt that America was. Welcome Home is a work of satire, where he mocks the major general of the army that he himself served in during World War II. The contextual mode of analysis can be used when looking at this work, because it was made right after World War II and it is in context of the historical time period. The biographical analysis can also be used, since Levine was so strongly influenced by what he saw in the army, and he therefore displayed his strong views against what he saw as “undemocratic” leaders.1 When viewing City Landscape, it is best to use a contextual mode of analysis. This piece was made during the ...
...’s book accomplishes a lot in its timid three hundred pages, it lacks more examples of modern architecture and historical landmarks such as the ones discussed above. Also, the lack of chronological order is a new approach, but it might not appeal to all readers.
Directly after World War II was a very ambiguous time for the people of Germany; their cities had been left in ruins. Roberto Rossellini uses the ruins of the city to show the uncertainty of the people’s surroundings. They were living in a city where buildings were in shambles, homes were destroyed, and there was no way of knowing when their current surroundings would be altered again. Rossellini frequently pans over the city’s ruins with a wide, long shot to solidify the feelings of the people of Germany.
Events throughout this chapter should leave the reader with a feeling of disbelief and make start to question the philosophy of Leibniz. The irony displayed in the shipwreck was then exaggerated by Pangloss’s explanation for James death in the Lisbon Bay. Voltaire used of descriptive words such as flames and topsy-turvy painted images in the readers, which made them, ask themselves how is this the best possible outcome? The combination of the lack of rational in Pangloss’s sulfur explanation with the sailors grotesque behavior completed the attack on the Enlightenment period and their view of optimism. As all of these examples and literary devices produced a chapter full of satiric examples that left the reader flabbergasted with their
Mack, Benjamin. “Tourism overwhelms vanishing Venice.” DW.DE. Deutsche Welle, 11 Sept. 2012. Web. 12 Jan. 2014. .
A Closer Examination of Paolo Sarpi and the Uses of Information in the Seventeenth-Century Venice
Primary Source Analysis 2 / Chapter 7: Travelers’ Tales and Observations (Sources 7.1 / 7.2)
In ‘Deconstructing the Map’ Harley looks at the writings of two well-known philosophers’ Michael Foucault and Jacques Derrida, looking at their argument’s around maps. Foucault, a renounced philosopher in cultural theory, examines the external power and the omnipresence of internal power in the cartographic representation of place. Derrida applied conceptions of literary understanding to the maps construction. Derrida’s argument was that like a literary text a map could also be read, and using theory Harley was able to deconstruct the map. Another name that is just mentioned in this essay is Panofsky; Erwin Panofsky was an art historian, “most frequently associated with the concept of iconography, matching the subject-matter of works of art to a symbolic syntax of m...
Like a tree spreading its roots into the ground, cultural history is something that is deeply rooted in the minds of people. As the significance of Herodotus unravels itself in “The English patient,” Michael Ondaatje touches further upon the idea of how personal history is shaped by cultural history. Ondaatje refers to Tacitus, a great Roman historian, in the third chapter, “Something with Fire” in order to enhance the notion that times of terror can influence the shaping of an individual’s personal history. By focusing on the behavior and habits of the Kip and Caravaggio, he can pinpoint how warfare in cultural history affects the personal history. With the aid of Tacitus’ insight, the use of description, Ondaatje effectively demonstrates how the characters personal history, actions or an inability to act, and habits, are shaped by warfare.
Thomas Mann's Death in Venice presents an artist with a fascination for beauty that overpowers all of his senses. Aschenbach's attraction to Tadzio can be viewed as a symbol for his love for the city of Venice. The city, however, is also filled with corruption, and it is this corruptive element that kills him.