Literary Beach - History and Aesthetics of a Modern Topos

This book studies the literary representation of the beach from ancient Greek literature up until today, drawing on English, French, Italian, American and Spanish literatures from various periods and genres and presenting multiple ways of comparing and understanding literary beaches as a ubiquitous literary phenomenon.

List of contents

List of Contributors
1. Carsten Meiner and Katrine Helene Andersen, "Introduction: The Literary Beach: History and Aesthetics of a Modern Topos"
2. Knut Ove Eliassen, Topologies of the Beach
3. Frits Andersen, The Already Modern Beach. Robert Louis Stevenson's South Sea Tales
4. Christopher Messelt, The Beach and the Modern Norwegian Novel
5. Katrine Helene Andersen, Between Topos and Heterotopia. Literary Representations of the Spanish Beach in Works by Carmen Laforet and Juan Goytisolo
6. Tore Rye Andersen, Sous la Plage, les Pavés! The Beach between Utopia and Dystopia in Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice and Cormac McCarthy's The Road
7. Christian Dahl, One Place, two Topoi: The Beach in Ancient Greek literature
8. Maria Damkjær, Cheapness, Predictability, and Cliché: Beaches in Nineteenth-Century British Periodicals
9. Charles Lock, Words on the Beach: Riddles of the Unpainted Shore and the Wrapped Coast
10. Morten Chemnitz and Carsten Meiner, The Topological Poetics of the Beach in Marguerite Duras' L'Amour and L'Été 80
11. Pia Schwarz Lausten, The Birth of a Beach Worm. The Beach as a Catalyst for Memories and Reflections on Female Identity in Elena Ferrante's The Lost Daughter
Index

About the author

Carsten Meiner is Professor of French at the University of Copenhagen.
Katrine Helene Andersen is an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen.

Product details

• Authors: Carsten (University of Copenhagen Meiner
• Assisted by: Katrine Helene Andersen (Editor), Meiner Carsten (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 29.09.2025
• EAN: 9781032526744
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3252674-4
• No. of pages: 176
• Series: Routledge Studies in Comparative Literature
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > History; History, Cultural Studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Nature, LITERARY CRITICISM / Comparative Literature, Humanities, Literary studies: general, Hydrology & the hydrosphere, Physical geography & topography, Physical geography and topography, Hydrology and the hydrosphere