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Arthur Machen’s Hill of Dreams and the Spatial Hinge

Aled Singleton Orcid Logo

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2022

Swansea University Author: Aled Singleton Orcid Logo

Abstract

Arthur Machen’s semi-autobiographical novel The Hill of Dreams (1907) follows a young man who spent his childhood in Wales and now lives in late-Victorian London. This paper takes the latter text and uses the ‘spatial hinge’ concept (Thurgill, 2021) to explore how wandering the ever-expanding neighb...

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Published in: RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2022
Published: Newcastle 2022
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa61914
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spelling 2022-11-30T11:50:10.8843485 v2 61914 2022-11-14 Arthur Machen’s Hill of Dreams and the Spatial Hinge de05fcd0fb401bfcdef0b5c7fcf422f1 0000-0002-1302-3776 Aled Singleton Aled Singleton true false 2022-11-14 SGE Arthur Machen’s semi-autobiographical novel The Hill of Dreams (1907) follows a young man who spent his childhood in Wales and now lives in late-Victorian London. This paper takes the latter text and uses the ‘spatial hinge’ concept (Thurgill, 2021) to explore how wandering the ever-expanding neighbourhoods of 1890s London evokes everyday moods (Highmore, 2011) in Caerleon, the actual birthplace of Machen, as post-war private housing estates were taking shape. My work takes an assemblage approach (Anderson, 2015) including close reading, historic maps, biographical interviews, and a collaboration with a performance artist to compose a Hill of Dreams-inspired public walk for the 2019 Caerleon Literary Festival. Text was shared during the walking event, such as Machen describing the metropolis’ edgelands as: ‘everywhere the ruins of the country, the tracks where sweet lanes had been, gangrened stumps of trees, the relics of hedges…’ (2006, p. 168). Such words, experienced in a suburban location, prompted people to recall the 1960s when woodlands and lapwing habitats were displaced by bricks and tarmac. This use of a fictional text in a real place works towards ‘interspatiality’ (Hones, forthcoming); revealing that which is more-than-representational and giving valuable insight to the subjective and affective dimensions of space. Conference Paper/Proceeding/Abstract RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2022 Newcastle 2 9 2022 2022-09-02 COLLEGE NANME Geography COLLEGE CODE SGE Swansea University Not Required Economic and Social Research Council Fellowship Grant ES/W007568/1 2022-11-30T11:50:10.8843485 2022-11-14T19:31:14.9392883 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Geography Aled Singleton 0000-0002-1302-3776 1 61914__25779__455c84d0800d48c3974ef0b4e6cdaade.pdf Literary Geographies Arthur Machens Hill of Dreams and the Spatial Hinge Conference Paper.pdf 2022-11-14T19:36:28.2687039 Output 433877 application/pdf Author's Original true false
title Arthur Machen’s Hill of Dreams and the Spatial Hinge
spellingShingle Arthur Machen’s Hill of Dreams and the Spatial Hinge
Aled Singleton
title_short Arthur Machen’s Hill of Dreams and the Spatial Hinge
title_full Arthur Machen’s Hill of Dreams and the Spatial Hinge
title_fullStr Arthur Machen’s Hill of Dreams and the Spatial Hinge
title_full_unstemmed Arthur Machen’s Hill of Dreams and the Spatial Hinge
title_sort Arthur Machen’s Hill of Dreams and the Spatial Hinge
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description Arthur Machen’s semi-autobiographical novel The Hill of Dreams (1907) follows a young man who spent his childhood in Wales and now lives in late-Victorian London. This paper takes the latter text and uses the ‘spatial hinge’ concept (Thurgill, 2021) to explore how wandering the ever-expanding neighbourhoods of 1890s London evokes everyday moods (Highmore, 2011) in Caerleon, the actual birthplace of Machen, as post-war private housing estates were taking shape. My work takes an assemblage approach (Anderson, 2015) including close reading, historic maps, biographical interviews, and a collaboration with a performance artist to compose a Hill of Dreams-inspired public walk for the 2019 Caerleon Literary Festival. Text was shared during the walking event, such as Machen describing the metropolis’ edgelands as: ‘everywhere the ruins of the country, the tracks where sweet lanes had been, gangrened stumps of trees, the relics of hedges…’ (2006, p. 168). Such words, experienced in a suburban location, prompted people to recall the 1960s when woodlands and lapwing habitats were displaced by bricks and tarmac. This use of a fictional text in a real place works towards ‘interspatiality’ (Hones, forthcoming); revealing that which is more-than-representational and giving valuable insight to the subjective and affective dimensions of space.
published_date 2022-09-02T04:21:07Z
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