Bi-dimensional versions of classic literature

My written contribute to Malofiej18 Annual Publication, p. 50
Index Books, Spain 2011

In 1654, while publishing her novel Clélie (1), Madeleine de Scudéry also published a map she herself had created. Her ‘Carte du pays de Tendre’’ (fig.1) — a map of the Land of Tenderness — presents a multifaceted landscape: land, sea, a river, a lake, trees, some bridges and various cities. In her novel one of the female characters draws the map as a guide to “the land of tenderness”: it is the embodiment of narrative travel. That is to say, it visualizes the emotional journey of the story as a landscape. In this way ‘Carte de Tendre’ reveals a world of endearments. In its design, based on the romantic narrative, the external world gives expression to an inner landscape. To travel though this territory is to immerse oneself in a stream of personal as well as social psycho-geography. Emotions are shaped by the changing topography. Movement produces emotion and at the same time, emotion has movement. The Latin root of the term emotion, — which comes from emovere — is verb comprised of movere and ex, “out”. Therefore, the meaning of emotion is historically associated with “movement, migration, transference from one party to another”. The relationship between imaginary maps and the ability to comprehend the space as created by the art of cartography, with its spatial translation of emotional sequences, is therefore a function of narrative imagination. Read more