Gertrud Lehnert. Space and Emotion in Modern Literature

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2 Gertrud Lehnert Space and Emotion in Modern Literature In the last decade, the so-called spatial turn has produced a broad discussion of space and spatiality in the social sciences, in architecture and art, as well as in philosophy 1, and in literary criticism. One aspect, however, has largely been ignored by literary historians as well as by theorists/historians of space, that is, the constitutive interrelationships of space and emotions 2. The only theories dealing with this crucial aspect are phenomenological philosophies of space like those of Gaston Bachelard, Elisabeth Ströker, or Hermann Schmitz. Gaston Bachelard, in his classic study Poétique de l Éspace, classifies certain places and spatial objects, like miniatures or chests of drawers, as material things possessing emotional as well as dream-like qualities. Bachelard focuses exclusively on happy spaces, and his theory of the connection of space and emotion is, albeit omnipresent, rather implicit. According to Elisabeth Ströker, geometric space is rooted in what she calls lived space (and not the other way round as usually supposed). Thus, space, for her, is not only something that can be measured, but, above all, a quality and an expressiveness that addresses men. The most explicit theorist of space and emotion is Hermann Schmitz who assumes (1) an identical structure of space and the human body, (2) that atmospheres and emotions are a quality of space, not solely a human projection. Space, therefore, is experienced by humans as emotional space. Literary criticism certainly was and is interested in space, but rather in a history of literary themes, describing and interpreting the function of spaces in narratives or poetry, or in analyzing modes of depicting space. In this book, we focus on a crucial, albeit neglected aspect of space: the constitutive interrelation of space and emotion not generally, but in literature, more precisely: in modern literature which, in all its diversity, seems nevertheless to be characterized by a general unsettling of assumptions, beliefs, hopes and emotions. Literature is itself a space where cultural and individual ideas, anxieties, and desires can be negotiated and given an aesthetic form which, then, enables its readers to experience the created world from an interior perspective, rather than a didactic external perspective. 1 See, e.g., Dünne/Günzel 2006; Günzel One of the first books exploring this relation from the perspectives of literary criticism, media studies, and philosophy is Lehnert

3 Assuming a dynamic concept of space as the result of human activities and perceptions, combined with the phenomenological concept of space possessing emotional values and a specific atmosphere, we wish to initiate a discussion of the specific emotional and atmospheric qualities of those spaces and places that prevail in modern texts, namely: anxiety, desire, fear, uncertainty, solitude. Paradigmatic for the mélange of space and emotion in modern texts are spaces of transition, sometimes bound to the happiness of freedom, sometimes to indifference, but often to a deeply-grounded existential uncertainty, anxiety or solitude. Marc Augé described characteristic spaces of transition where nobody ever remains but where, nevertheless, we spend more and more time: shopping malls, highways, or airports places where personal existences depend on the possession of a credit card. Augé calls them no-place /non-lieux, in opposition to lieux, those anthropological places where subjects, according to Augé, feel rooted and secure. Augé s distinction between place and no-place brings me to another, even more basic distinction, the one between space and place. With Henri Lefebvre and others, I assume that space is always socially (or culturally) constructed. Space has two meanings: it can be considered as (1) natural space (Lefebvre) functioning as a sort of origin or raw material out of which human perceptions and actions create what can be called (2) lived space: the space men create as agents of perception, spacing, movement and imagination. I would like to argue that these specific practices often materialize into places: for example a garden, or buildings that are clearly defined, fixed at a geographical point and organized in a palpable manner. Places are able to store memories and to conserve and produce emotions and atmospheres, therefore any place is more than just a material structure. Moreover, places can be superseded by more or less imaginary spaces, which are dependent on the often ephemeral use people make of them. They may, for example, use a sitting room as a theatre of a private drama or, on the contrary, a magical celebration. This transformation does not necessarily take place by the change of the material structure, but rather by a re-decoration, a change of perception or, more generally, in the reorganization of the emotional use-value of these spaces. Heterotopias in the Foucaultian sense, like hotels or railway stations, are another conceptualization of modern space comparable to the non-lieux. Yet, heterotopias are defined as real places within modern societies, possessing specific functions, which were gradually excluded from everyday life. They are accessible only at regulated times and under certain conditions (such as opening hours of department stores or museums or, in the case of hospitals or prisons, a good reason as well as a permit to visit someone). Heterotopias, therefore, are strictly structured by processes of inclusion and exclusion and thus deeply involved in the power relations of a given society. The perfect heterotopia, for 8

4 Foucault, is a ship always moving and therefore difficult to access, never arriving for good, always departing and re-departing. In this book, railway stations, health resorts, or hotels are paradigms for the heterotopic experience (see Massimo Fusillo s, Ana Belén López Pérez and my article in this edition). They can be experienced as places of sexual transgression, as Massimo Fusillo argues in his article on railway stations. Here, normative discourses are expanded by the practice of cruising that subverts the functionality of the place and establishes the railway station as a productive space of sexual encounter. Health resorts can become favorable spaces where identities are mirrored and reflected in a space that aims at the purification of the body and the soul. Ana Belén López Pérez shows in her analysis of Katherine Mansfield s short stories that the choice of the setting within a confined place and time span is related to the generic qualities of the short story. Labyrinths and mirrors are another paradigm of modernity, which causes feelings of disorientation, be these challenging and entertaining or horrifying. Labyrinths and mirrors are not only part of Genette s histoire as a literary topic, but they have been transformed into a typically modern mode of narration, and moreover, they may have an impact on the design of the material object book itself, as Monika Schmitz-Emans argues in her analysis of eight texts from Carroll to Marc-Antoine Mathieu. In other words, those texts can be considered heterotopic from at least three perspectives: the plot, the narrative structure, and the material object book transforming into a labyrinthine space of its own. The interconnection of narrated space and the literary strategy of narrating space are pivotal in the following articles on space and feelings of distress. Julia Weber reads Kafka s The Burrow as a spatial allegory for the construction of the narrative, whereas Sandra Poppe argues that the atmosphere of anxiety in Kafka s novels relates directly to the fusion of public space and private life, which is typical for heterotopias as well as for non-lieux. Stephanie Siewert s article is determined to locate a specific mental and emotional space of melancholy that supersedes the real geographies of transnational writers and becomes a space of creative reproduction. The article also pertains to questions of loss and the complex relationship between the rooted, sacred or essential places and the inevitable presence of non-places in a globalized world. The seven articles in this book were first presented and discussed in a workshop held at the conference of the International Comparative Literature Association in Seoul, Korea, August The discussion during and after the workshop considered questions on the terminology and relevance of spatial theories for literary and cultural studies. We also thought of emotions as an important topos that relates to many different aesthetic and philosophical categories like Stimmung (mood, sentiment, disposition), atmosphere, or aura, 9

5 but more importantly, to specific narrative structures and perspectives that are part of the spatial constitution of texts. The participants of the workshop immediately decided to re-work the papers and to publish them, hoping to inspire further discussions of the interrelation between spaces and emotions as constituent of modern life and modern literature. I would like to thank Robert Schade and above all my co-editor Stephanie Siewert for the editing of the manuscript. 10