The Urban Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century European Literature: City Fissures

ISBN-13: 9783030837785 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023 / 239 str.

Patricia Garc?a

Opis

The Urban Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century European Literature explores transnational perspectives of modern city life in Europe by engaging with the fantastic tropes and metaphors used by writers of short fiction. Focusing on the literary city and literary representations of urban experience throughout the nineteenth century, the works discussed incorporate supernatural occurrences in a European city and the supernatural of these stories stems from and belongs to the city. The argument is structured around three primary themes. “Architectures”, “Encounters” and “Rhythms” make reference to three axes of city life: material space, human encounters, and movement. This thematic approach highlights cultural continuities and thus supports the use of the label of “urban fantastic” within and across the European traditions studied here. 

Spis treści

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

1. Introduction – The Modern Fantastic: A Tale of Two Cities

1.1. The modern European city: a conceptual framework

1.2. The fantastic: a historical perspective

1.3. The urban dominant

 

PART I: BUILDINGS– Architectural Intruders

Introduction: Architecture and Habit(at)

 

Chapter 2. Fantastic Antique Shops

2.1. A Parisian adventure

2.2. Modern anachronisms: “Le Pied de momie” (Gautier, 1840)

2.3. Reading in reverse: the antiquarian scene in La Peau de chagrin (Balzac, 1831)

 

Chapter 3. The City’s Haunted Houses

3.1. The architectural anomaly

3.2. Victorian haunting formulas

3.3. “The Truth” about haunted city houses

3.4. A monotonous sensation

 

PART II: ENCOUNTERS– Urban Revenants and Other Fantastic Acquaintances

Introduction: How the (Un)Dead Became Modern

 

Chapter 4. Female Spirits of Place

4.1. Some male referents: Hoffmann’s “Ritter Gluck” (1809) and Thornbury’s Haunted London (1859/1865)

4.2. The uncivil woman: “La mujer alta” (Alarcón, 1882)

4.3. The beheaded returns

 

Chapter 5. Fantastic Exhibitions of the Self

5.1. The urban production of identities

5.2. Behind the mask: the femme-énigme in Jean Lorrain’s masquerades

5.3. Beyond the mask: an unwelcome guest

5.4. Mirrors: narcissistic pathologies

5.5. Showcases: “La Princesa y el Granuja” (Pérez Galdós, 1877)

 

PART III: RHYTHMS – The Fantastic on the Move

Introduction: A Fantastic of Rhythm

 

Chapter 6. The Ghosts of Public Transport

6.1. Pity a poor bridge

6.2. Fellow travelers

6.3. A maze of stories: “La novela en el tranvía” (Pérez Galdós, 1871)

 

Chapter 7. Cacophony and Asynchrony

7.1. The nightmares of a regular man

7.2. Chronophobia – Phonophobia: Rodenbach’s “L’Heure” (1894) and “Un Inventeur” (1898)

7.3. Cholera and its musical metaphors: “Una industria que vive de la muerte; episodio musical del cólera” (Pérez Galdós, 1865)

7.4. When modernity stops: “La Nuit” (Maupassant, 1887)

 

Epilogue. Contemporary Revisitations

Timeline

Index

 

O autorze

Patricia García is Ramón y Cajal Researcher at the Universidad de Alcalá, Spain. Her research focuses on narrative spaces and their intersection with urban studies, feminisms and with representations of the supernatural. She coordinates the network Fringe Urban Narratives: Peripheries, Identities, Intersections, has directed the project Gender and the Hispanic Fantastic (funded by the British Academy) and has been a fellow of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (2018-2019) with a EURIAS fellowship. She is a member of Executive Committee of the European Society of Comparative Literature, of the Spanish Research Group on the Fantastic (Grupo de Estudios de lo Fantástico) and of the editorial board of BRUMAL: Research Journal on the Fantastic. Her most notable publications include the monograph Space and the Postmodern Fantastic in Contemporary Literature: the Architectural Void (2015). 

Blurb

The Urban Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century European Literature explores transnational perspectives of modern city life in Europe by engaging with the fantastic tropes and metaphors used by writers of short fiction. Focusing on the literary city and literary representations of urban experience throughout the nineteenth century, the works discussed incorporate supernatural occurrences in a European city and the supernatural of these stories stems from and belongs to the city. The argument is structured around three primary themes. “Architectures”, “Encounters” and “Rhythms” make reference to three axes of city life: material space, human encounters, and movement. This thematic approach highlights cultural continuities and thus supports the use of the label of “urban fantastic” within and across the European traditions studied here. 

Patricia García is Ramón y Cajal Researcher at the Universidad de Alcalá, Spain. Her research focuses on narrative spaces and their intersection with urban studies, feminisms and with representations of the supernatural. She coordinates the network Fringe Urban Narratives: Peripheries, Identities, Intersections, has directed the project Gender and the Hispanic Fantastic (funded by the British Academy) and has been a fellow of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (2018-2019) with a EURIAS fellowship. She is a member of Executive Committee of the European Society of Comparative Literature, of the Spanish Research Group on the Fantastic (Grupo de Estudios de lo Fantástico) and of the editorial board of BRUMAL: Research Journal on the Fantastic. Her most notable publications include the monograph Space and the Postmodern Fantastic in Contemporary Literature: the Architectural Void (2015).