| Popis: |
Rethinks the relationship between architecture, literature and (in)visibility in the nineteenth-century cityPresents a new approach to reading urban modernity, through the categories of the hidden, the mobile and the transparentDevelops the theoretical concept of ‘invisible architecture'as a tool for analysing nineteenth-century literatureIntervenes in the growing field of literature and architecture studiesOffers new readings of important novels by Gaskell (Mary Barton), Dickens (Dombey and Son, Our Mutual Friend) and Zola (The Kill, The Ladies'Paradise)Makes new arguments for reading the Gothic cathedral, the arabesque and pre-modernist whiteness in the context of urban modernityBen Moore presents a new approach to reading urban modernity in nineteenth-century literature, by bringing together hidden, mobile and transparent features of city space as part of a single system he calls ‘invisible architecture'. Resisting narratives of the nineteenth-century as progressing from concealment to transparency, he instead argues for a dynamic interaction between these tendencies. Across two parts, this book addresses a range of apparently disparate buildings and spaces. Part I offers new readings of three writers and their cities: Elizabeth Gaskell and Manchester, Charles Dickens and London, and Émile Zola and Paris, focusing on the cellar-dwelling, the railway and river, and the department store respectively. Part II takes a broader view by analysing three spatial forms that have not usually been considered features of nineteenth-century modernity: the Gothic cathedral, the arabesque and white walls. Through these readings, the book extends our understanding of the uneven modernity of this period. |
