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Maps and the Writing of Space in Early Modern England and Ireland

Palgrave Macmillan

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xii
  2. Introduction: The Cartographic Transaction

    1. Introduction: The Cartographic Transaction

      • Bernhard Klein
      Pages 1-11
  3. Measurements

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13
    2. Mathematics of the World

      • Bernhard Klein
      Pages 21-41
    3. Land Measuring: an Upstart Art

      • Bernhard Klein
      Pages 42-60
    4. Surveying Ireland

      • Bernhard Klein
      Pages 61-75
  4. Cartographies

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 77-77
    2. The Whole World at One View

      • Bernhard Klein
      Pages 85-96
    3. Mapping the Nation

      • Bernhard Klein
      Pages 97-111
    4. The Image of Ireland

      • Bernhard Klein
      Pages 112-130
  5. Narratives

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 131-131
    2. Imaginary Journeys: Describing Britain

      • Bernhard Klein
      Pages 137-148
    3. The Poetics of National Space

      • Bernhard Klein
      Pages 149-170
    4. Groundless Fictions: Writing Irish Space

      • Bernhard Klein
      Pages 171-187
  6. Back Matter

    Pages 188-235

About this book

Maps make the world visible, but they also obscure, distort, idealize. This wide-ranging study traces the impact of cartography on the changing cultural meanings of space, offering a fresh analysis of the mental and material mapping of early modern England and Ireland. Combining cartographic history with critical cultural studies and literary analysis, it examines the construction of social and political space in maps, in cosmography and geography, in historical and political writing, and in the literary works of Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser and Drayton.

Reviews

'Many books aspire to be interdisciplinary but few achieve a genuine fusion

of different approaches to a body of material. Bernard Klein is a rare

exception as he moves from nation to nation, and text to text, with admirable ease, compelling the reader to follow his insights through to the conclusion. This is a major work on Renaissance conceptions of space and deserves to be read by all students of the history, literature and geography of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.' - Andrew Hadfield, Professor of English, University of Wales, Aberystwyth

'...lucid, stimulating and revealing.' - Wasafiri

'This is...a rich and deeply engaging book - a genuine work of interdisciplinary scholarship from which everyone interested in early modern culture, politics, literature, and, indeed, science, will have much to learn.' - Andrew Murphy, University of St Andrews, Early Modern Literary Studies

'...fascinating reading...' - Steve Hindle, Albion

'...a dazzling display of erudition in which not only maps, atlases and estate surveys themselves, but also texts as diverse as treaties on the business of surveying and map-making, contemporary travel documents, dramas, prose and poetry are examined by the author to constitute a convincing account of the ways in which the mapping of the early modern nation was instrumental in the rising consciousness of national selfhood...Klein's Maps and the Writing of Space in Early Modern England and Ireland is a highly polished piece of interdisciplinary scholarship made all the more exciting by the sheer pace of the argumentation...The writing is elegant and witty, but never falters in its consistently high level of conceptualization...Klein's readings are a salutary example, for today's students, of a well-balanced conjunction of theoretical coherence and innovation, historical contextualization and a fine sense of the creative workings of literary texts. For all those interested in the areaof early modern cultural and literary studies, his book is to be warmly recommended.' - Russell West

'...fascinating reading. Klein's analysis is invariably original despite the familiarity of so many of the sources with which he is working...The implications of Klein's arguments for the production of social and political relations in early modern England are wide-ranging...It is to Klein's credit that his fine book is equally sensitive to the potential of maps both to exhibit, and to deny, the existence of political and cultural difference.' - Steve Hindle, University of Warwick

'...highly effective in teasing out a number of the tangled geographical strands in Early Modern culture and revealing the 'cartographic investment in the production of cultural meaning'...Klein frankly declares that 'my discussion of cartography in these chapters is ultimately less motivated by an interest in the history of maps than in the culture of mapping'. As an exploration of this general culture in its Early Modern form Maps and the Writing of Space is excellent...lucid, stimulating and revealing' - Jess Edwards, Wasafiri

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Dortmund, Germany

    Bernhard Klein

About the author

BERNHARD KLEIN is Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies at the University of Dortmund. He is editor (with Andrew Gordon) of Paper Landscapes, Literature, Mapping, and the Politics of Space in Early Modern Britain.

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access