Topophrenia

Robert T. Tally Jr. is Professor of English at Texas State University. His books include Fredric Jameson: The Project of Dialectical Criticism; Utopia in the Age of Globalization: Space, Representation, and the World System; and Spatiality.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Cartographic ImperativePart I: Place in Geocritical Theory and Practice1. Topophrenia2. Introducing Geocriticism3. Geocritical SituationsPart II: Spatial Representation in Narrative4. The Mise-en-Abyme of Literary Cartography5. The Space of the Novel6. Theatrum GeographicumPart III: Fantasy and the Spatial Imagination7. Adventures in Literary Cartography8. In the Suburbs of Amaurotum9. Beyond the Flaming Walls of the WorldConclusion: A Map of the PyreneesBibliographyIndex

"Tally writes tersely and elegantly of the Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, of Moby-Dick (notably 'The Chart' sequence), Ulysses, Tolkein's 'middle worlds,' and, soon after, Thomas More and of the relation of utopia to fantasy and science fiction. If space belongs to the form and purpose of the novel, it also applies to Topophrenia in general. ... Ambitious in scope, the strength of Topophrenia is found in how it makes its case."—Peta Mitchell, author (with Jane Stadler and Stephen Carleton) of Imagined Landscapes: Geovisualizing Australian Spatial Narratives"With Topophrenia Robert Tally discerns, first, how literature invents and produces space, and second, what the creative imagination does with space. These become the ground of a critical praxis addressing the conditions of the world in which we live. Blending close analysis with dialectics, Tally's book is a compelling study of the complex relations of literature and geography."—Tom Conley, author of An Errant Eye: Poetry and Topography in Early Modern France