19 (Oct 2013)

Theories of Space and the Nineteenth-Century Novel

  • Isobel Armstrong

DOI
https://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.671
Journal volume & issue
no. 17

Abstract

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This article explores the construction of a spatial and interspatial subject in the nineteenth-century novel, examining initially the epistemologies of space developed by Kant and Hegel, and concluding with discussion of two further theorists of space, Bachelard and Lefebvre. It deploys this rich array of theorization to illuminate strategies through which the nineteenth-century novelist creates situatedness in language, asking how 'does' the novel represent space, and arguing that if we take away this almost miraculous verbal construction of space there is not much left to the novel.

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