
The Written World
Space, Literature, and the Chorological Imagination in Early Modern France
Jeffrey N. Peters(Author)
Northwestern University Press
Published on 30. May 2018
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-0-8101-3698-4 (ISBN)
Description
In The Written World: Space, Literature, and the Chorological Imagination in Early Modern France, Jeffrey N. Peters argues that geographic space may be understood as a foundational, originating principle of literary creation. By way of an innovative reading of chora, a concept developed by Plato in the Timaeus and often construed by philosophical tradition as "space," Peters shows that canonical literary works of the French seventeenth century are guided by what he calls a "chorological" approach to artistic invention. The chorological imagination describes the poetic as a cosmological event that gives location to - or, more accurately, in Plato's terms, receives - the world as an object of thought.
In analyses of well-known authors such as Corneille, Moliere, Racine, and Madame de Lafayette, Peters demonstrates that the apparent absence of physical space in seventeenth-century literary depiction indicates a subtle engagement with, rather than a rejection of, evolving principles of cosmological understanding. Space is not absent in these works so much as transformed in keeping with contemporaneous developments in early modern natural philosophy. The Written World will appeal to philosophers of literature and literary theorists as well as scholars of early modern Europe and historians of science and geography.
In analyses of well-known authors such as Corneille, Moliere, Racine, and Madame de Lafayette, Peters demonstrates that the apparent absence of physical space in seventeenth-century literary depiction indicates a subtle engagement with, rather than a rejection of, evolving principles of cosmological understanding. Space is not absent in these works so much as transformed in keeping with contemporaneous developments in early modern natural philosophy. The Written World will appeal to philosophers of literature and literary theorists as well as scholars of early modern Europe and historians of science and geography.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Evanston
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
515 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8101-3698-4 (9780810136984)
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Jeffrey N. Peters
Written World
Space, Literature, and the Chorological Imagination in Early Modern France
E-Book
05/2018
1st Edition
Northwestern University Press
€89.99
Available for download
Person
Jeffrey N. Peters is professor of French and Francophone studies at the University of Kentucky.