How to Read an Early Modern Map: Between the Particular and the General, the Material and the Abstract, Words and Mathematics
Edwards, Jess
Early Modern Literary Studies 9.1 (May 2003)
Abstract
Let me begin with a cartographic paradox. In one respect maps seem the most superficial and self-evident of texts. We expect most adults to be able to read a map, whether it was produced in the seventeenth century or yesterday. Cartography, we might presume, is a pretty universal mode of communication, and part of the textual common ground of modernity. Yet the forms and functions of the modern map are in reality multi-faceted. Maps may signify territorial “reality” or some utopian nowhere. They may refer to physical, or to cultural objects. They may be intended for the most pragmatic uses, for decoration, or simply to signify their own map-ness. And the list could be considerably extended. As a paradoxically protean cultural form, the map has always been the meeting point for a wide range of knowledges and cultural practices. No wonder, then, that it has become an important focus for the modern academy’s drive towards interdisciplinary research, and for varying practices of interpretation.
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