ABSTRACT

In the city novel, the panorama is a narrative strategy of the first order, often juxtaposed with and complemented by the city walk. The city walker in literature, with its roots in the contested figure of the flaneur, and the panorama, with its intimation of a totalization of space, constitute together a crucial pair of hermeneutic approaches to space in the city novel and to the complex relationship between spatial surroundings, the protagonist, and their development. The panorama gives a bird's-eye view of the city, but a built or natural vantage point can, in turn, provide a focal point that connects the disparate perspectives on ground level, and in this sense, it is merely a change in perspective to move from the panorama to the kaleidoscope. Apart from attuning students to the practical implications of conceptualizations such as the panorama and the flaneur, they also emphasize the situated and embodied character of such cognitive approaches to the city.