
Pleasures of Literary Spatiality
Expanding and Contracting Settings
E.L. Risden(Author)
McFarland & Co Inc (Publisher)
Published on 15. February 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
194 pages
978-1-4766-9493-1 (ISBN)
Description
Barring such illnesses as claustrophobia or agoraphobia, or situations such as medical isolation or incarceration, most people move naturally from smaller to larger spaces and back again without giving the process much thought. But paying attention to our own movement in space yields all sorts of sensory experiences from something relaxing to something terrifying or even astonishingly beautiful. Our sense of expandable/contractible space can influence how we process everything from Japanese gardens to mountain hikes and desert expanses.
Writers often expand or contract spaces around their characters for dramatic effect, character building, and even thematic purposes. Marie de France used expanded spaces for adventure and travel and contracted spaces first for romance, and then for spiritual devotion. Chaucer used expanded spaces for adventure, pilgrimage, and danger and contracted spaces for conviviality and storytelling. Dante and Milton created expansive cosmologies but focused on small spaces for both suffering and incredible spiritual achievement. This study of literary spatiality yields fascinating results, reflects useful techniques for reading, and reminds us of the value of all sorts of different approaches to analysis and artistic enjoyment.
Writers often expand or contract spaces around their characters for dramatic effect, character building, and even thematic purposes. Marie de France used expanded spaces for adventure and travel and contracted spaces first for romance, and then for spiritual devotion. Chaucer used expanded spaces for adventure, pilgrimage, and danger and contracted spaces for conviviality and storytelling. Dante and Milton created expansive cosmologies but focused on small spaces for both suffering and incredible spiritual achievement. This study of literary spatiality yields fascinating results, reflects useful techniques for reading, and reminds us of the value of all sorts of different approaches to analysis and artistic enjoyment.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Jefferson, NC
United States
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
notes, bibliography, index
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Weight
293 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4766-9493-1 (9781476694931)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
E.L. Risden, emeritus professor of English at St. Norbert College, lives in De Pere, Wisconsin, where he continues to write literary and movie scholarship, speculative fiction, and occasional poetry.
Content
Table of Contents
Preface: Some Thoughts on Ways of Knowing and Seeing
?1.?Some Ideas on Expandable/Contractible Space in Literary Contexts
?2.?Marie's Lais and the Movement from Romantic to Religious Space
?3.?Place and the Contraction/Expansion of Space in Dante's Commedia
?4.?Expandable/Contractible Space in the Canterbury Tales: Some Theoretical Measures from Beyond the French Fringe
?5.?Boundaries, Virtue, and a Spatiality of Romance: Love, Adventure, and Magic in The Faerie Queene, Le Morte Darthur, and Sir Gawain the Green Knight
?6.?Shakespeare's Henry V: The Stage as Space, Place, and Mind
?7.?Paradise Lost and the Physical/Spiritual Implications of Expandable/Contractible Space
?8.?Pope's The Rape of the Lock and the Expandable/Contractible Space of -Upper-Class Satire
?9.?Tolkien and Spatiality: What Expandable and Contractible Space Suggests in The Lord of the Rings
10.?Horizontal and Vertical Space and the Renaissance Mind
Bibliography
Index
Preface: Some Thoughts on Ways of Knowing and Seeing
?1.?Some Ideas on Expandable/Contractible Space in Literary Contexts
?2.?Marie's Lais and the Movement from Romantic to Religious Space
?3.?Place and the Contraction/Expansion of Space in Dante's Commedia
?4.?Expandable/Contractible Space in the Canterbury Tales: Some Theoretical Measures from Beyond the French Fringe
?5.?Boundaries, Virtue, and a Spatiality of Romance: Love, Adventure, and Magic in The Faerie Queene, Le Morte Darthur, and Sir Gawain the Green Knight
?6.?Shakespeare's Henry V: The Stage as Space, Place, and Mind
?7.?Paradise Lost and the Physical/Spiritual Implications of Expandable/Contractible Space
?8.?Pope's The Rape of the Lock and the Expandable/Contractible Space of -Upper-Class Satire
?9.?Tolkien and Spatiality: What Expandable and Contractible Space Suggests in The Lord of the Rings
10.?Horizontal and Vertical Space and the Renaissance Mind
Bibliography
Index