Image and Substance a Review of Literary Geography

Geography and Literature

Juha Ridanpää

• LAST REVIEWED: 24 June 2019
• LAST MODIFIED: 26 Feb 2013
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0013

Introduction

In human and cultural geographies, fictive literature, novels, and poems accept been used in unlike manners for over a century. Literature has been an object of study, a thematic context for research, a perspective through which the world is perceived, a methodological tool, and more than. This relatively understudied field of geographic enquiry, often titled "literary geography," includes several overlapping perspectives following the main epistemological and theoretical turns in the fields of homo and cultural geographies. In the early years, literature was ofttimes used to add aesthetic nuances to geographic descriptions or, slightly paradoxically, to function every bit a database for separating fact from fiction. Subsequently, before the 1960s and the rising interest in regionalism, literary geography was not actually geographic analysis of literature but rather a helping manus in descriptive geographic portrayals. Regionalist, humanist, and socially critical perspectives diversified the ways literature could be used in analytic terms and thereby turned literature into an object of study. Since the "cultural turn" of human being geographies at the end of the 1980s, more-variable approaches have occurred, and the manner of perceiving the world through the lens of literature has go an increasingly natural and not then exceptional perspective of enquiry. In addition, in a similar fashion to that in the early years of literary geography, quotations, excerpts, and sections from literature are constantly referred to in geographic studies to illustrate or explicate the topics discussed in "other words" or—what is actually a more plausible reason—to add sure aesthetic nuances to arguments. The field of geographic studies of literature has been categorized thematically by following the development of research in human and cultural geographies in a somewhat chronological manner. This is a specifically geographic viewpoint; although there are several interesting literary studies that focus on questions related to spatiality, these studies are not included in this article.

Full general Overviews

The field of literary geography is relatively difficult to place into systematic categories considering topics and viewpoints often overlap, and it may be for this reason that the number of general overviews has been low. The all-time general overviews are relatively one-time and therefore outdated, but Noble and Dhussa 1990 nonetheless provides a skillful perspective on the background of tradition and major turns in the early on development. In a similar fashion, Pocock 1988 takes a decent chronological look at how literature has been used in the course of geographic studies. Some overviews include a specific critical argument, every bit with the excellent coverage in Brosseau 1994, where the stance is purposely critical, arguing that in literary geography the text itself should role more as a target of enquiry. Similarly, Sharp 2000 dissects the tradition and development of literary geography from a more than disquisitional perspective. Other overviews instead dissect the course of research from certain theoretical perspectives, such as the overview offered in Lando 1996, which is focused more toward humanist approaches, whereas Mallory and Simpson-Housley 1987, an edited collection, attempts to be, as its title suggests, "a meeting of the disciplines." In taking a wait at the development of the geographic study of literature, several fresh articles include good overviews of the development in the field.

• Brosseau, Marc. "Geography'due south Literature." Progress in Human Geography 18.3 (1994): 333–353.

  DOI: 10.1177/030913259401800304

  An excellent disquisitional overview of the historical background of literary geography, ending in a critical argument of how geographers should give more voice to the text itself. Relies partly on French geographic studies of literature. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

• Lando, Fabio. "Fact and Fiction: Geography and Literature." GeoJournal 38.ane (1996): 3–18.

  A full general introduction to the bibliography on the geographic studies of existent and literary landscapes, understandings of the sense of place, the concepts of rooting and uprooting, and the definitions of inscapes and territorial consciousness. The focus is specifically on humanist geography and its epistemological reflections. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

• Mallory, William E., and Paul Simpson-Housley, eds. Geography and Literature: A Meeting of the Disciplines. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1987.

  Collection of various papers that dissect the literary aspects of landscape, from several points of view. In add-on to humanist perspectives, the book includes realistic, socially critical, symbolic, metaphoric, and surrealistic interpretations of literary landscapes.

• Noble, Allen G., and Ramesh Dhussa. "Prototype and Substance: A Review of Literary Geography." Periodical of Cultural Geography 10.2 (1990): 49–65.

  DOI: 10.1080/08873639009478447

  A historical review of major developments in the course of studies focusing on the subjective meanings associated with mural. Gives a wider perspective on how the literature and the perspective of geography have been applied together. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

• Pocock, Douglas C. D. "Geography and Literature." Progress in Homo Geography 12.i (1988): 87–102.

  DOI: 10.1177/030913258801200106

  The article thoroughly reviews the interface between geography and literature, by dissecting how literature has been "utilized" in the history of geographic research. Available online for purchase or past subscription.

• Sharp, Joanne P. "Towards a Critical Analysis of Fictive Geographies." Area 32.3 (2000): 327–334.

  DOI: ten.1111/j.1475-4762.2000.tb00145.ten

  This newspaper critiques both humanist and regional perspectives likewise as critical geographers for taking a limited view of the relationship between geography and literature. Information technology offers an engagement with literary fiction that analyzes the content and form of the text, leaving room for its distinctive voice. Available online for purchase or by subscription.

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