Walking with Jonson

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

Walking has long been vital to critical engagements with the idea of the city, from Walter Benjamin and the flaneur to Debord and psychogeography; recent political movements from Occupy to the Umbrella Revolution have been characterised by the (non-)movement of bodies in public spaces. This paper explores some of Ben Jonson’s many walking practices within and beyond London, in both his life and works. Jonson’s walks produce knowledge of the city in ways that sometimes trouble de Certeau’s distinction between strategy and tactics, from his contributions to civic pageantry and royal entries to journeys undertaken as wagers, such as his walk to Scotland in 1618. Jonson was clearly engaged with the emerging genre of chorographic writing, such as Stow’s Survey of London (1598), and his works reveal a view of walking as a way of both reading and writing the city. This paper situates Jonson’s walking in the context of broader early modern epistemology, particularly a changing understanding of the circulation of blood, as well as anxieties about spaces like theatres and marketplaces that were perceived as potentially destabilising because of the presence of bodies. I argue that in Jonson’s work, walking represents an inherently political relationship between bodies and space.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusUnpublished - 2017
EventBodies in Motion in the Early Modern World - Kings College London, London
Duration: 31 Mar 2017 → …

Conference

ConferenceBodies in Motion in the Early Modern World
CityLondon
Period31/03/17 → …

Research Beacons, Institutes and Platforms

  • Cathie Marsh Institute

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