Writing London, Volume 3: Inventions of the Other City

Writing London: Inventions of the City stages a series of interventions and inventions of urban space between the years 1880 and 1930 in key literary texts of the period. Making sharp distinctions between modernity and modernism, the volume reassesses the city as a series of singular sites irreducible to stable identities, whilst also offering a cogent re-evaluation of motifs of the nocturnal and the suburban in the literary imagination of London, concluding with an extended reading of The Waste Land and its manuscript drafts. How Did Writers In The Nineteenth Century Come To Terms With The Phenomenon Of London, The World's Largest And Most Rapidly Expanding City? How Did They Perceive The 'modern Babylon' In All Its Excesses And Chaos, And How Did The Rapid Change And Development Of London Affect Or Alter Their Prose And Poetry? Did London, In Fact, Help To Shape Modern Literary Conceptions And Representations Of Urban Space And Its Effects On Our Lives In Cities, As City-dwellers? These Questions Are Raised In Writing London, Which Asks The Reader To Consider How Writers In The First Half Of The Nineteenth Century Sought To Respond To The Nature Of London, A City Quite Unlike Any Other During This Period. Drawing On Literary Theory, Psychoanalysis And Architectural Theory, Julian Wolfreys Looks At A Variety Of Responses In Poetry, Fiction And Autobiographical Writing To Consider The Apocalyptic, The Labyrinthine And The Phobic Modes Of Production Among Numerous Reactions To The City. [v. 1] The Trace Of The Urban Text From Blake To Dickens -- V. 2. Materiality, Memory, Spectrality -- V. 3. Inventions Of The City. Julian Wolfreys. Vol. 2 Has Imprint: Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan. Includes Bibliographical References And Indexes. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgements......Page 9 Abbreviations......Page 10 Introduction: Of Invention and the Singularities of the City of London......Page 14 1 The Hieroglyphic Other: The Beetle, London and the Anxieties of Late Imperial England......Page 21 2 The ‘tortuous geography of the night world’: ‘Productive disorder’ and the Noctuary Text......Page 50 Brief moments in time I......Page 76 3 Between Seeing and Knowing: Amy Levy, Arnold Bennett and Urban Counter-romance......Page 94 Brief moments in time II......Page 148 4 ‘All the living and the dead’: Urban Anamnesis in John Berger and Iain Sinclair......Page 172 5 ‘Concatenated words from which the sense seemed gone’: The Waste Land......Page 204 Notes......Page 260 Works Cited......Page 265 E......Page 273 P......Page 274 W......Page 275 Cover 1 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 9 Abbreviations 10 Introduction: Of Invention and the Singularities of the City of London 14 1 The Hieroglyphic Other: The Beetle, London and the Anxieties of Late Imperial England 21 2 The ‘tortuous geography of the night world’: ‘Productive disorder’ and the Noctuary Text 50 Brief moments in time I 76 3 Between Seeing and Knowing: Amy Levy, Arnold Bennett and Urban Counter-romance 94 Brief moments in time II 148 4 ‘All the living and the dead’: Urban Anamnesis in John Berger and Iain Sinclair 172 5 ‘Concatenated words from which the sense seemed gone’: The Waste Land 204 Notes 260 Works Cited 265 Index 273 A 273 B 273 C 273 D 273 E 273 F 274 G 274 H 274 I 274 J 274 K 274 L 274 M 274 N 274 P 274 R 275 S 275 T 275 U 275 W 275 This book stages a series of interventions and inventions of urban space between 1880 and 1930 in key literary texts of the period. Making sharp distinctions between modernity and modernism, the volume reassesses the city as a series of singular sites irreducible to stable identities, concluding with an extended reading of The Waste Land . "This book stages a series of interventions and inventions of urban space between the years 1880 and 1930. Addressing key literary texts and neglected authors of the period, Writing London explores the alterity within many of London's most familiar locations."--BOOK JACKET