Scholarly record
HYBRID CENTRES OF MODERNITY IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY: DUBLIN AND BUCHAREST
Abstract
This article aims at looking at two centres of modernity, seen in space, time and metaphorical representation, in the early twentieth century as illustrated by the Irish writer James Joyce in Ulysses (1922) and the Romanian novelist Cezar Petrescu in Calea Victoriei [Victory Avenue], published in 1929. The analysis is based on recent research that has entangled the representation of space in cultural and fictional texts with the geographic spaces of the respective historical periods, the reason being that, since time and space are not to be severed, nor are history or geography. The theoretical approach to the analysis draws on views on space as a philosophical category and as a trope of modernity (Heidegger, Lefebvre, Foucault, de Certeau) from geocritical perspectives (Westphal, Tally) which focus on fictional representations of urban spaces that lead to the creation of cognitive maps cartographed by human activities. The two cities under scrutiny (Dublin and Bucharest) reveal striking similarities, never discussed before, in envisaging modernity as a site of conflict between a nostalgic, rustic, nineteenth-century and the dynamic process of constructing a local identity of place connected to history and politics. Moreover, one important point that connects the two cities despite the geographical distance between them is the rise of modernity as a paradigm shift from the spiritual to the commercial, from an artisan-minded space to an industrial one, generally, from the feudal system to a capital-based society, which actually means the shift, I argue, from agrarian domination to urbanization.
Publication Impact Profile
Publication details
References13
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, pp. 33-42, 1991.
Thacker, Andrew. Moving through Modernity (Space and Geography in Modernism), Manchester, UK and New York, NY: Manchester University Press, pp. 3-4, 2003.
Westphal, Bertrand. (2007) Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 6, 2011.
Westphal, Bertrand. (2007) Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 52, 2011.
Joyce, James. (1922) Ulysses, New York, NY: Vintage Books, pp. 76-80, 1993.
Joyce, James. (1922) Ulysses, New York, NY: Vintage Books, pp. 590-592, 1993.
Deane, Seamus. “Dead ends: Joyce’s finest moments”, in eds Derek Attridge and Marjorie Howes. Semicolonial Joyce, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 21-36, 2000.
Thacker, Andrew. Moving through Modernity (Space and Geography in Modernism), Manchester, UK and New York, NY: Manchester University Press, pp. 128-130, 2003.
Petrescu, Cezar. (1929) Calea Victoriei, Bucuresti, RO: Facla, p. 50, 1989.
Le Bon, Gustave. (1895) The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, New York, NY: Viking Press, pp. 14-16, 1960.
Petrescu, Cezar. (1929) Calea Victoriei, Bucuresti, RO: Facla, pp. 64-67, 1989.
Thacker, Andrew. Moving through Modernity (Space and Geography in Modernism), Manchester, UK and New York, NY: Manchester University Press, p. 119, 2003.
Foucault, Michel. “Space, Power and Knowledge,” in ed. Simon During, The Cultural Studies Reader. London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 134- 141, 1993.
View or Download full articleAccess options
SWS access login
Login as SWS Scientific CommitteeLogin as SWS Scientific PartnerLogin as SWS AuthorAuthors and approved SWS contributors will read and export their own linked papers after identity matching by SWS profile, email and SGEM GlobalID.
For librarian assistance: [email protected]
Purchase Instant Access
- Article can be downloaded after successful payment.
- Article may be used according to SWS library access terms.
- Article cannot be redistributed.
