Thomas De Quincey og den litterære gjenskapingen av Piranesi

Abstract

of Roman architecture are widely known. However, it was the literary recreation of these etchings, not the etchings themselves, that secured their fame. This article traces the reinvention of Piranesi back to the English Romantic Thomas De Quincey. De Quincey’s significant ‘misinterpretations’ of Piranesi’s prisons – the Carceri – relaunched the series as modern in fundamental ways. By labelling them ‘dreams’, the etchings appeared to reflect the unconscious, and by pointing out the architecture’s seemingly endless expansion, they foreshadowed urban dystopia. of stairs is descried; and there, again, is the delirious Piranesi, busy on his aspiring labours: and so on, until the unfinished stairs and the hopeless Piranesi both are lost in the upper gloom of the hall. 6