Lefebvrean landscapes

Abstract

Many of the challenges facing the historian interested in the concept of space are also encountered by the historian of past landscapes. Although several valuable paradigms already exist for understanding the subject of landscape in a historical context, this chapter considers the significant analytical potential of adapting and applying Henri Lefebvre’s tripartite division of space to the study of the early modern landscape. It focuses particularly upon depictions, descriptions, and reactions to mountains contained within Thomas Coryate's Crudities (1611), recounting his adventurous travels across Europe, alongside several other works of early modern literature and travel-writing. The chapter proposes that Lefebvre’s categories of spatial practice and representational, or symbolic space, offer historians a way to both categorize and articulate the ways in which individuals in the past physically experienced and mentally constructed the world around them.