Interdisciplinary approaches: literature and cartography. Between images and words

Abstract

For twenty years, a large number of works have been devoted to studying the inclusion of literature in space and the representation of places in literary texts. This interest in space issues seems to fit in both the evolution of literary genres, characterized by an increasing spatialization of narrative forms, and the development of artistic practices related to the creation of literary maps. After what has been termed the spatial turn in literary and cultural studies, critics have focused their attention on the relationships among space, place and mapping in literature. This aspect is one of the most interesting themes in the field of Geocriticism. This paper aims to study this “convergence” between literature and cartography, examining the textuality of literary maps and, in particular, their rhetorical dimension. Literary maps can represent the story setting, allowing the author to build a fictional world that readers explore with the characters.