Hemispheres and Stratospheres

The Idea and Experience of Distance in the International Enlightenment

Edited by Kevin L. Cope

SERIES: Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture, 1650-1850

Bucknell University Press

Recognizing distance as a central concern of the Enlightenment, this volume offers eight essays on distance in art and literature; on cultural transmission and exchange over distance; and on distance as a topic in science, a theme in literature, and a central issue in modern research methods. Through studies of landscape gardens, architecture, imaginary voyages, transcontinental philosophical exchange, and cosmological poetry, Hemispheres and Stratospheres unfurls the early history of a distance culture that influences our own era of global information exchange, long-haul flights, colossal skyscrapers, and space tourism.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

With his characteristic intellectual amplitude, Kevin L. Cope presents in this volume essays on the eighteenth-century ‘prospect’ in art and literature, the function of distance in Italian architecture, the European travel of two South Indian priests, the dislocations and adaptations of ‘long distance’ imaginary voyages, and the possible advantages of ‘distant’ reading—among others. While novel in its core supposition, the volume pays respect to an older, distinguished scholarly orientation that is perfectly in line with our own multidisciplinary moment: the history of ideas. John Scanlan, coeditor of The Age of Johnson

In eight wide-ranging essays by prominent scholars, this groundbreaking collection challenges how Enlightenment and long-eighteenth-century researchers need to reassess the interdisciplinary nature, cultural richness, and international scope of this topic. The study ventures into new territories in the international and cultural terrain of distance studies, uncovering uncharted research and future prospects in the digital humanities. Mark Pedreira, Professor of English, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras

With his characteristic intellectual amplitude, Kevin L. Cope presents in this volume essays on the eighteenth-century ‘prospect’ in art and literature, the function of distance in Italian architecture, the European travel of two South Indian priests, the dislocations and adaptations of ‘long distance’ imaginary voyages, and the possible advantages of ‘distant’ reading—among others. While novel in its core supposition, the volume pays respect to an older, distinguished scholarly orientation that is perfectly in line with our own multidisciplinary moment: the history of ideas. John Scanlan, coeditor of The Age of Johnson

Kevin L. Cope is Adams Professor of English Literature and a member of the comparative literature faculty at Louisiana State University. Among his many books and edited collections are Criteria of Certainty, John Locke Revisited, and In and After the Beginning. He is also editor of the annual journal 1650–1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era.

List of Illustrations
Introduction
Part I: Best Seen at a Distance: The Art of the Far Away
Looking Down: Observations on Elevation, Prospect Vision, and Eighteenth-Century Imagination
Roger D. Lund
Space and the Meaning of Distance in Bernardo Vittone’s Architecture
William Stargard
Change of Air, Change of Self: Long Distance and Human Adaptability in Imaginary Voyages of the Long Eighteenth Century
Bärbel Czennia
Part II: Culture Over and As Distance
Distant Lands, Distant Races, Distant Cultures: Two Eighteenth-Century South Indian Priests Go to Europe
Brijraj Singh
Connecting Hemispheres, Playing with Distance: Rammohun Roy, an Indian Transnationalist
Chandrava Chakravarty
Part III: The Nature of Distance
New Science, Distant Reading, and Distance as Intersubjectivity
Rachel Mann
Orbiting Iambs: Enlightenment Cosmology and Conveniently Condensed Immensities
Kevin L. Cope
Journeys to the Edge: The Idea and Experience of Distance in Archival Research
Phyllis Thompson
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index

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