Introduction

Abstract

This essay makes the case for an emphasis on space-class analysis in British literature, particularly in texts in which social class is emphasized. The essay mirrors the general argument of the volume, outlining the way that class analysis without an emphasis on lived experience remains largely abstract and hypothetical. By focusing on space—particularly the kinds of imaginative negotiations of space portrayed in literature—the lived experience of class is revealed. As such, British literature, the essay argues, can be read as a viable source of experience that can augment class analysis in a manner that replicates the development of the spatial turn in the humanities. The essay begins by outlining some of the challenges associated with defining working-class literature, primarily due to the fact that notions of working-class life are fluid and unstable. It then discusses the emergence of the “spatial turn” or “the spatialization of Marxism” as a way to position spatial analysis as a viable access point for reading class-conscious fiction. The chapter suggests that the lived experience, often absent in more abstract notions of social class, can be ascertained through spatial metaphors and techniques in literature that demonstrate how identities are formed and negotiated relative to environment. In doing so, the essay suggests that literature can act as a stand-in for aspects of lived experience felt broadly through concepts such as Raymond Williams’s “structures of feeling”—commonly felt and often culturally sanctioned representation of life through literature. Addressing Nigel Thrift and Peter Williams’s contention that the intersection of class and space serves as a productive yet unexplored site of cultural knowledge, the introduction suggests that class-conscious fiction provides the kinds of data Bertrand Westphal claims as absent in materialist analysis. The introduction serves to make a case for spatio-class analysis, outlines the general content of the book, and touches on future work that such an approach might take up.