ion>The Cylinder
FLASHPOINTS
The series solicits books that consider literature beyond strictly national and disciplinary frameworks, distinguished both by their historical grounding and their theoretical and conceptual strength. We seek studies that engage theory without losing touch with history and work historically without falling into uncritical positivism. FlashPoints aims for a broad audience within the humanities and the social sciences concerned with moments of cultural emergence and transformation. In a Benjaminian mode, Flash-Points is interested in how literature contributes to forming new constellations of culture and history and in how such formations function critically and politically in the present. Available online at http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucpress.
Series Editors
Ali Behdad (Comparative Literature and English, UCLA)
Judith Butler (Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley), Founding Editor
Edward Dimendberg (Film & Media Studies, UC Irvine), Coordinator
Catherine Gallagher (English, UC Berkeley), Founding Editor
Jody Greene (Literature, UC Santa Cruz)
Susan Gillman (Literature, UC Santa Cruz)
Richard Terdiman (Literature, UC Santa Cruz)
1. On Pain of Speech: Fantasies of the First Order and the Literary Rant, by Dina Al-Kassim
2. Moses and Multiculturalism, by Barbara Johnson, with a foreword by Barbara Rietveld
3. The Cosmic Time of Empire: Modern Britain and World Literature, by Adam Barrows
4. Poetry in Pieces: César Vallejo and Lyric Modernity, by Michelle Clayton
5. Disarming Words: Empire and the Seductions of Translation in Egypt, by Shaden M. Tageldin
6. Wings for Our Courage: Gender, Erudition, and Republican Thought, by Stephanie H. Jed
7. The Cultural Return, by Susan Hegeman
8. Reading Delhi: The Politics of Language and Literary Production in India, by Rashmi Sadana
9. The Cylinder: Kinematics of the Nineteenth Century, by Helmut Müller-Sievers
The Cylinder
Kinematics of the Nineteenth Century
Helmut Müller-Sievers
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2012 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Müller-Sievers, Helmut.
The cylinder : kinematics of the nineteenth century / Helmut Müller-Sievers.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-520-27077-0 (pbk. : acid-free paper)
1. Literature, Modern—19th century—Themes, motives. 2. Machinery in literature. 3. Mechanics in literature. 4. Science in popular culture.
5. Cylinders. I. Title.
PN56.M2M85 2012
809’.915 23
2011033138
Manufactured in the United States of America
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on 50-pound Enterprise, a 30% post-consumer-waste, recycled, deinked fiber that is processed chlorine-free. It is acid-free and meets all ANSI/NISO (z 39.48) requirements.
For J and s,
. . . ardorem cupiens dissimulare meum.
Contents
PART ONE: THE PREHISTORY AND METAPHYSICS OF THE CYLINDER
PART TWO: CYLINDERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
6. Kinematics of Narration I: Dickens and the Motion of Serialization
8. Kinematics of Narration II: Balzac and the Cylindrical Shape of the Plot
10. Kinematics of Narration III: Henry James and the Turn of the Screw
