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Introduction

Catherine Tatiana Dunlop

in Cartophilia: Maps and the Search for Identity in the French-German Borderland

This chapter introduces readers to the topography of Alsace-Lorraine from the perspective of the migratory storks that fly over the region each year. It then introduces the concept of “cartophilia” ... More

This chapter introduces readers to the topography of Alsace-Lorraine from the perspective of the migratory storks that fly over the region each year. It then introduces the concept of “cartophilia” as a passion for map making and map reading that spread across modern Europe from the late eighteenth century onwards. Cartophilia, the book argues, was inspired by European nationalist movements and made possible through affordable new printing technologies. The chapter also provides an overview of the book’s main contributions to the history of cartography, spatial history, and the history of European nationalism. It concludes with a description of the book’s six thematic chapters, each of which focuses on a different kind of borderland map.Less

Land

Sujit Sivasundaram

in Islanded: Britain, Sri Lanka, and the Bounds of an Indian Ocean Colony

This chapter is first a history of cartography and then a history of roads and bridges. It begins with an account of the wars of 1803 and 1815, and the importance of topographical information to ... More

This chapter is first a history of cartography and then a history of roads and bridges. It begins with an account of the wars of 1803 and 1815, and the importance of topographical information to their outcome, before outlining the sources of topographical information among rural communities in Lanka. It then traces the emergence of British cartography in the island and highlights how this cartography was not purely an objective study, but one that also had aesthetic qualities. The second half of the chapter deals with the application of map-making to roads, bridges, canals, and reservoirs.Less

Scandalous Maps in Aeschylean Tragedy

Aara Suksi

in Myths on the Map: The Storied Landscapes of Ancient Greece

In Homeric epic, describing a map of the world, like epic song itself, is a privilege granted by the divine Muses and figured in Hephaestus’ shield-making. In two examples from Aeschylean tragedy, a ... More

In Homeric epic, describing a map of the world, like epic song itself, is a privilege granted by the divine Muses and figured in Hephaestus’ shield-making. In two examples from Aeschylean tragedy, a defiant hero appropriates the map-making prerogative of the gods established in Homeric epic. In each case, in a bid to restructure the existing order, the hero lays claim to the divine ability to map the space of the world without invoking the Muses. In Prometheus Bound, Prometheus’ gift of a map to mortal Io is not just an altruistic favour. It is also a part of his strategy for controlling and directing the future in a way that will ultimately lead to his own liberation. In Agamemnon, Clytemnestra uses Hephaestus’ fire to map space instantaneously. Her control of the god’s technology is aligned with her scandalous power over every other aspect of the action of the play.Less

Egypt Imagined and the Realities of the Voyage

in How Many Miles to Babylon?: Travels and Adventures to Egypt and Beyond, From 1300 to 1640

Although Europeans were hostile to Muslims, they still embarked on dangerous sea voyages, risking their lives in exchange for the opportunity not only to make pilgrimage to the Christian holy places ... More

Although Europeans were hostile to Muslims, they still embarked on dangerous sea voyages, risking their lives in exchange for the opportunity not only to make pilgrimage to the Christian holy places but also to increase the lucrative trade with the infidels. Travellers knew little about pharaonic Egypt in fourteenth-century Europe, but the revival of classical learning led to a rather incomplete picture of that ancient country that combined fact and fantasy. Ancient Egypt was considered full of mystery and wonders, and a place of magic and astrology. Contemporary travel literature was based on earlier works that only perpetuated some of the myths about Egypt. Together with the development of map-making, travellers wrote accounts of their personal experiences to be read by those at home, including graphic details of the dangers and discomforts they encountered during their odyssey at sea.Less

‘Proceeding Without a Map’: Kathleen Jamie and the Lie of the Land

David Wheatley

in Kathleen Jamie: Essays and Poems on Her work

This chapter explores questions of poetic territory in Jamie’s poetry, with particular focus on Jizzen,The Tree House and The Overhaul. Wheatley considers Jamie’s political and historical poems, and ... More

This chapter explores questions of poetic territory in Jamie’s poetry, with particular focus on Jizzen,The Tree House and The Overhaul. Wheatley considers Jamie’s political and historical poems, and their refusal to align poetic map-making with nation-building projects. Her poems about Scottish landmarks imaginatively explore local histories, rather than presuming to overturn them. She is aware of the complexities of land-ownership in Scotland and her poems make no claims of ownership of Romantic bowers or forest groves. In a distinct refusal of the bardic self-aggrandizements of Yeats or English Romantic poets, Jamie celebrates provisional sheltering spaces found on cliff-sides or coast-lines. Poetic territory remains provisional, just as political-cultural arrangements of landscape prove transient, in Jamie’s recent poetry.Less