Mapping Spatiality: Spatial Narrative and Spatial Criticism

Foreign Literature Studies ›› 2018, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (5): 114-124.

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Mapping Spatiality: Spatial Narrative and Spatial Criticism

Fang Ying

Online:2018-10-25 Published:2022-05-24
About author:Fang Ying is associate professor of English at Ningbo University (Ningbo 315212, China). Her scholarly interests include literary theories, spatial literary criticism, and British and American literary criticism. Email: ttbetty@126.com
Supported by:
“Studies of Spatial Literary Criticism” (17BZW057) sponsored by the Program of National Social Science Fund of China

Abstract

Abstract: The “spatial turn” in literature has developed into a field of Spatial Literary Studies centering around such key concepts as space, spatiality, place and mapping. Drawing on Jameson’s notion of Cognitive Mapping and Robert Tally’s theory of Literary Cartography, this paper examines the currently disputable issues of Spatial Narrative and Spatial Criticism, and aims to sort out the fundamental connection of mapping spatiality between them. Here, mapping refers metaphorically to the representation and construction of space and spatial elements. As such, the concept of Mapping Spatiality puts an emphasis on spatial elements in literature, and is meaningful in the processes of writing and reading. In writing, the concept of Spatial Narrative refers to the function and meaning of space and spatiality in text and in a more narrow sense, to a narrative model in which the spatial sequence and logic govern the narrative. In the aspect of reading/criticism, spatiality becomes the perspective and focus of Spatial Criticism.

Key words: literary cartography, mapping, spatiality, spatial narrative, spatial criticism

Fang Ying. Mapping Spatiality: Spatial Narrative and Spatial Criticism[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2018, 40(5): 114-124.

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