Susan Stewart is the Avalon Foundation University Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University and a former MacArthur Fellow. Among her many books of prose are On Longing, The Open Studio, Poetry and the Fate of the Senses, and The Poet’s Freedom. Her books of poems include Columbarium, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Cinder.

“Why is it, Susan Stewart asks in her deeply researched and gracefully written book The Ruins Lesson, that 'we so often are drawn—in schadenfreude, terror, or what we imagine is transcendence—to the sight of what is broken, damaged, and decayed?'. . . . Stewart is among our most erudite readers of poetry. She is a philologist in the old-fashioned sense: a scholar who combines knowledge of several European and classical languages, a historical awareness of the development and interaction of their literary traditions, and a commitment to philosophical aesthetics that one feels even in her close readings. But she is also a poet, and writes with unfaltering clarity and poise. Finally (a word Stewart might object to), she is a discerning art critic—a skill on full display in her new book.”

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceIntroduction: Valuing RuinI. Matter: This Ruined EarthII. Marks: Inscriptions and SpoliaIII. Mater: Nymphs, Virgins, and Whores—On the Ruin of WomenIV. Matrix: Humanism and the Rise of the Ruins PrintV. Model: The Architectural ImaginaryVI. Mirrors: The Voyages and Fantasies of the Ruins CrazeVII. The Unfinished: On the Nonfinality of Certain Works of ArtVIII. Resisting Ruin: The Decay of Monuments and the Promises of LanguageAcknowledgmentsNotesWorks CitedPhotography CreditsName IndexSubject Index

Susan Stewart is the Avalon Foundation University Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University and a former MacArthur Fellow. Among her many books of prose are On Longing, The Open Studio, Poetry and the Fate of the Senses, and The Poet’s Freedom. Her books of poems include Columbarium, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Cinder.

“Why is it, Susan Stewart asks in her deeply researched and gracefully written book The Ruins Lesson, that 'we so often are drawn—in schadenfreude, terror, or what we imagine is transcendence—to the sight of what is broken, damaged, and decayed?'. . . . Stewart is among our most erudite readers of poetry. She is a philologist in the old-fashioned sense: a scholar who combines knowledge of several European and classical languages, a historical awareness of the development and interaction of their literary traditions, and a commitment to philosophical aesthetics that one feels even in her close readings. But she is also a poet, and writes with unfaltering clarity and poise. Finally (a word Stewart might object to), she is a discerning art critic—a skill on full display in her new book.”

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceIntroduction: Valuing RuinI. Matter: This Ruined EarthII. Marks: Inscriptions and SpoliaIII. Mater: Nymphs, Virgins, and Whores—On the Ruin of WomenIV. Matrix: Humanism and the Rise of the Ruins PrintV. Model: The Architectural ImaginaryVI. Mirrors: The Voyages and Fantasies of the Ruins CrazeVII. The Unfinished: On the Nonfinality of Certain Works of ArtVIII. Resisting Ruin: The Decay of Monuments and the Promises of LanguageAcknowledgmentsNotesWorks CitedPhotography CreditsName IndexSubject Index