Two-wheeled Sensibility: Sensory Engagement with Place in British, American and French Cycling Narratives, 1880–1914
Texts written in the early days of cycling hint at the appearance of a new and paradoxical engagement with space. On the one hand, the bicycle was a technology which provided personal mobility to a wide section of the population, whilst encouraging a multisensory engagement with landscape in the wak...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2016-05-01
|
| Series: | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2611 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Texts written in the early days of cycling hint at the appearance of a new and paradoxical engagement with space. On the one hand, the bicycle was a technology which provided personal mobility to a wide section of the population, whilst encouraging a multisensory engagement with landscape in the wake of the railways. On the other hand, cyclists’ accounts bear testament to a certain mechanization of the body and the senses, contributing to a visual, distancing experience of place which the railways had inaugurated. I argue that it is the unique combination of these two registers that defines the turn-of-the-century cycling aesthetic. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0220-5610 2271-6149 |