Moving in the Renaissance: The Rhetorical Ecologies of John Stow’s Survey of London and Ben Jonson’s “Foot Voyage”

Document Type

Article

Authors

Pauline Reid, University of DenverFollow

Author Biography

Pauline Reid is a scholar of early modern studies and rhetoric: she investigates the relationship between sensation and epistemology in publications such as her book Reading by Design: The Visual Interfaces of the English Renaissance Book (2019) and various articles. She lives in Michigan with her husband and son.

Abstract

Critical phenomenologies of space and sensation often represent them as forms of popular liberation because they draw from the modernist theories of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau. However, a historical phenomenology of movement through space in two early modern period’s walking texts—as rhetorical ecologies—reveal public spaces and their sensations as controversial and uncanny landscapes bound by historical and cultural practice. This analysis employs John Stow’s 1598 Survey of London and the recently discovered 1618 “Foot Voyage” of Ben Jonson from London to Edinburgh as case studies for phenomenal experiences of space in Renaissance cultural history.

Recommended Citation

Reid, Pauline (2022) "Moving in the Renaissance: The Rhetorical Ecologies of John Stow’s Survey of London and Ben Jonson’s “Foot Voyage”," Criticism: Vol. 64: Iss. 2, Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism/vol64/iss2/1