Literature, Mapping, and the Politics of Space in Early Modern Britain

This 2001 collection examines the impact of cartography on the shaping of social and political identities in early modern Britain.

Andrew Gordon (Edited by), Bernhard Klein (Edited by)

9780521169431, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 16 December 2010

292 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.43 kg

"No doubt this volume, which vividly demonstrates the link between the spatial and the social, will encourage more work on the topic, for these essays show interdisciplinary work, a variety of approaches, and a breadth of material to explore...[a] fascinating volume." Sixteenth Century Journal

Mapping has become a key term in current critical discourse, describing a particular cognitive mode of gaining control over the world, of synthesising cultural and geographical information, and of successfully navigating both physical and mental space. In this 2001 collection, an international team of renaissance scholars analyses the material practice behind this semiotic concept. By examining map-driven changes in gender identities, body conception, military practices, political structures, national imaginings and imperial aspirations, the essays in this volume expose the multi-layered investments of historical 'paper landscapes' in the politics of space. Ranging widely across visual and textual artifacts implicated in the culture of mapping, from the literature of Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe and Jonson, to representations of body, city, nation and empire, Literature, Mapping, and the Politics of Space argues for a thorough re-evaluation of the impact of cartography on the shaping of social and political identities in early modern Britain.

List of illustrations
Preface
Notes on contributors
Introduction Andrew Gordon and Bernhard Klein
Part I. Contested Spaces: 1. Absorption and representation: mapping England in the early modern House of Commons Oliver Arnold
2. A map of Greater Cambria Philip Schwyzer
3. Britannia rules the waves?: images of Empire in Elizabethan England Lesley B. Cormack
4. Performing London: the map and the city in ceremony Andrew Gordon
5. Visible bodies: cartography and anatomy Caterina Albano
Part II. Literature and Landscape: 6. The scene of cartography in King Lear John Gillies
7. Unlawful presences: the politics of military space and the problem of women in Tamburlaine Nina Taunton
8. Marginal waters: Pericles and the idea of jurisdiction Bradin Cormack
9. 'On the famous voyage': Ben Jonson and civic space Andrew McRae
10. Imaginary journeys: Spenser, Drayton, and the poetics of national space Bernhard Klein
11. Do real knights need maps? Charting moral, geographical and representational uncertainty in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene Joanne Woolway Grenfell
Epilogue: 12. The folly of maps and modernity Richard Helgerson
Select bibliography.

Subject Areas: Geographical maps [specialist RGS], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], History of art & design styles: c 1600 to c 1800 [ACQ]