Mapping the English Lake District: a literary GIS

Abstract

To date, much of the work that uses Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to study human geographies applies a social science paradigm to quantitative data. There is a growing recognition of the need, however, to test whether GIS can be used to map out the qualitative ‘data’ provided by the articulation of subjective spatial experiences. This paper expands the conceptual possibilities opened up by the use of GIS technology through an exploration of the theoretical potentiality of literary GIS. Drawing on work carried out as part of an interdisciplinary project, ‘Mapping the Lakes’, the paper focuses on the ways in which GIS can be used to explore the spatial relationships between two textual accounts of tours of the English Lake District: the proto‐Picturesque journey undertaken by the poet, Thomas Gray, in the autumn of 1769; and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s self‐consciously post‐Picturesque ‘circumcursion’ of August 1802. Alongside this text‐specific focus, the paper also draws on recent spatial literary criticism to reflect, more generally, on the critical possibilities and problems associated with the digital mapping of space and place in literature. Ultimately, the paper seeks to open up methodological and critical space for the ongoing development of literary GIS.

Translating text into space for mapping the past territory of a city: a study on spatial development of Dhaka during Mughal period

“…In the literature of GIS, various methods of aggregation have been studied till to date. A common method applied is density estimation where boundary is defined based on the density and proximity of the location (Alves and Queiroz 2013;Cooper and Gregory 2011). Hu et al (2004) presented a short exploration of the topic and identified 'Convex Hull' , as the best technique for aggregation.…”

“…Ray's (2002) study of the Salem Witchcraft Trials can be a good example of it where he used text based information like court documents and transcription of trials along with maps to understand the spatial aspect of the trial. Cooper and Gregory (2011) mapped the 'English Lake District' based on literary description. The research focused on the ways in which GIS can be used to explore the spatial relationships between two textual accounts of tours of the English Lake District: The first one is by poet Thomas Gray, in 1769; and the later one is Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1802.…”

“…Organizing the spatial information and making spatial representation of them using maps can give a more meaningful result (Baker 2003;Piatti et al 2009). The emergence of digital technology especially potential of GIS as an analytic tool in historical research is widely recognized for spatial representation of the text based qualitative data (Ayers 2010;Cooper and Gregory 2011). It has greatly reduced the complexity of spatial information and thereby increased the scope to represent the map according to the desired purpose.…”

Comparing digital traces of modern travellers to journeys of two 18th-19th century British poets

“…1: Do images and metadata allow similar semantic and geometric analysis to that previously carried out by Cooper and Gregory (2011)? 2: Do the spatial traces of modern travellers resemble those of Gray or Coleridge?…”

“…Cooper and Gregory (2011) recognised the richness of such sources and performed an analysis of texts by two 18 th -19 th century British poets, Samuel Coleridge and Thomas Gray. In their analysis they explored not only how and what was described, but also the locations visited by the two writers.…”