A Study Of Mike Crang’s “Literature Space” Theory

Space has been reintroduced to literary criticism by the developing Space theory, which tries to explore the space of literature. The theory can supplement and enrich the contents and methods of literary criticism, and it changes the way we think about literature. Mike Crang, the professor of the Durham University, is the representative figure of New Cultural Geography. He discusses the spatial meaning of literature in his book Cultural Geography. He considers that literature is the product of society and the significant process of social development. Literature is not simply to affectionate portrayal of the objective geography, but provides different methods to understanding the world, and it is also parts of the complex meaning network. It not only provides new approaches to interpretation of the literary under the context of “spatial turn”, but also forms new growth points of literary study from a perspective of New Cultural Geography to regard the “literature space” and deepen the study of Mike Crang’s “literature space”.This article researches from five aspects of the “literature space” theory of Mike Crang.The first part is introduction, including the present of questions and the significance of the research, the research status and the problems existing, especially on the problem statement. It reveals the understanding “culture” of New Cultural Geography, the gender relations in the “literature space” of Mike Crang as well as the problems in the research of urban modernity. This is also the breakthrough point in this paper.The second part is the theoretical background Combing the contents in two aspects. One is the three theoretical background of the formation and development of New Cultural Geography, which contain the arguments between the ideological trend of positivism and humanism in the Humanism Geography, the influence of “spatial turn” and the Cultural Studies and the breakthrough to traditional Cultural Geography. The second is how to understand the culture and the space criticism of literature in the horizon of New Cultural Geography.The third part is the basic idea and main contents of the “literature space” theory of Mike Crang. This is the main and the core body of this paper. The “literature space” theory discusses the relationship between literature and geography. Mike Crang refers that the space in the “literature space” is not a objectively reflect of the real world, but in a meaningful and complex network. He emphasizes the creation of the literature on place and region. There are three aspects of the “literature space”. One is about “the sense of place” in the “literature space”. We try to discuss its definition, generation and its particularity in order to reveal the creation of literature for geography. Two is the gender in the “literature space”. We mainly discuss about two types of the “literature space”, including the gender relationships, identity and the complex regional experience in “family” and “colonial”. Three is the city in the “literature space”. We discuss the relation between the city,power and modernity in the “literature space” through the analysis of the urban literature.The fourth part is about the evaluation of Mike Crang’s “literature space” theory. It mainly discusses the references and developments from space theory and cultural theory in the “literature space” theory and explores the special significance. We try to discrimination the subjectivity research methods, revealing the contradiction in the gender relations, which in fact has hidden meaning and theoretical dilemma, discussing its theoretical significance for the research of domestic literature geography.The fifth part is conclusion. It summarizes the contents of the “literature space” theory, and presents the difficulties of research in this paper, and how to dealing with those difficulties.