(Post‐)industrial optics: The role of the Hereford Mappa Mundi in Christopher Meredith's Shifts

Abstract

AbstractChristopher Meredith's novel Shifts (1988) is firmly established in the canon of English‐language Welsh literature as one of the most accomplished representatives of (post‐)industrial fiction, a genre this small country has produced in quality and amount ‘out of all proportion to its size or population’ (Knight, 2004). The aim of this paper is to explore the role of the medieval Mappa Mundi which two characters see in Hereford Cathedral in the context of the novel's circular structure and a rich network of other visual insets. Looking at the map from a variety of perspectives, including Murray Krieger's concept of ekphrasis as the superimposition of spatial relationships on a text by a visual work of art, I propose to read the fictional continuum of the novel as a mirror image of the medieval orbis terrarum on several planes: compositional, visual‐optical and symbolic. This reading is embedded within the broader context of the characteristics of the Welsh industrial novel discussed by Raymond Williams in his essay ‘The Welsh industrial novel’ (1979).