University of Exeter Press
Alternative Cornwalls
Literature and the Invention of Place
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- 244 Pages
This book takes a fresh look at the representation of Cornwall in literature from the nineteenth century to the present day. It identifies alternative literary ‘Cornwalls’ and seeks to understand these lost, hidden or subsumed versions of place and their relationship to the dominant, tourist-friendly ways in which Cornwall has been culturally produced. Digging down (a fitting metaphor given the importance of mining) below a sun, sea and sand promotion of Cornwall as an exotic haven, the volume offers new readings of familiar texts and locations, reintroduces little-known, forgotten or rarely studied material and inhabits places that are seldom centre stage. Considering class, gender, rural and urban locales, exterior and interior landscapes, and conceptualizations of the edge, it presents novel and invigorating perspectives.
Taking as her subject matter the work of both Cornish and visiting writers, literary scholar and Cornishwoman Gemma Goodman explores the fictional terrain beyond the creative landmarks that dominate how Cornwall is fashioned and understood in the national imaginary. In doing so, she begins to establish a more detailed cultural geography of this intricate land- and seascape. This book helps position Cornish literature as a body of work in its own right as well as within the wider context of British writing and literary studies.
Alternative Cornwalls offers a compelling study of Cornwall in the literary imagination. Goodman maps a rich terrain, traversing across moors and mines, from country to city, out to the coastal edges and into less familiar interiors. A wealth of literary sources are brought together through nuanced and perceptive readings, lending intricate insight and enriching new perspectives into the many versions and visions of Cornwall to be found in literature.
Dr Charlotte Mathieson, Senior Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century English Literature, University of Surrey
Goodman takes a fresh, nuanced look at the rich multiplicity of Cornwall beyond the romanticised holiday version familiar to visitors: it takes in moors as well as mines, the clay industry as well as coastal cliff scenery. In addition to bringing submerged versions of Cornwall to the surface Alternative Cornwalls impressively spans a wonderful range of authors and genres from the 1850s to the present, from Victorian classics to lesser-known regional mining novels and from bestselling crime, mystery and spy fiction to novels that engage with the fraught environmental and psychological edges of living on the Cornish peninsula.
Professor Shelley Trower, author of Rocks of Nation
While Alternative Cornwalls builds on existing ideas in Cornish studies, it takes the discipline in new directions with its specialist analysis of recent literature. It's a huge contribution.
Professor Philip Payton, author of Cornwall: A History
Introduction: Cornwalls
1. Mining Class and Gender
2. Beyond England
3. On the Edge
4. Urban Cornwall
5. Moor and Clay
Conclusion: Looking and Seeing
Notes
Bibliography
Index
- 244 Pages
