The City in Literature Essay Example for Free

The City in Literature EssayThis sweeping literary encounter with the Western thought of the city moves from the early novel in England to the apocalyptic cityscapes of Thomas Pynchon. Along the way, Richard Lehan gathers a rich entourage that includes Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Bram Stoker, Rider Haggard, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Raymond Chandler.The European city is pick up against the decline of feudalism and the rise of empire and totalitarianism the American city against the phenomenon of the wilderness, the frontier, and the rise of the megalopolis and the decentered, discontinuous city that followed. Throughout this book, Lehan pursues a dialectic of order and disorder, of cities desire to impose their presence on the surrounding chaos. Rooted in Enlightenment yearnings for reason, his journey goes from east to west, from Europe to America. In the United States, the movement is also due west and terminates i n Los Angeles, a kind of lands end of the imagination, in Lehans words. He charts a narrative continuum full of constructs that represent a cycle of hope and despair, of historical optimism and pessimism.Lehan presents precipitously etched portrayals of the correlation between rationalism and capitalism of the rise of the city, the decline of the landed estate, and the formation of the gothic and of the emergence of the city and the appearance of other genres much(prenominal) as detective narrative and fantasy literature. He also mines disciplines such as urban studies, architecture, economics, and philosophy, uncovering material that makes his study a lively suppose not only for those interested in literature, but for anyone intrigued by the meanings and mysteries of urban life.