ABSTRACT
The humanist geographer and the novelist have much in common. Both seek to portray the activities of people within the context of a specific milieu, infusing their descriptions of people and places with a sensitivity born of a rich and varied experience of life and society. Both seek to engender in their audience a deep awareness and empathy concerning the situation of others and their lebenswelt. And both may be equally biased in the presentation of their world views, wittingly or unwittingly distorting and manipulating the material at their command. The geographic use and interpretation of the novel must, therefore, face the bias of the novel – its ‘poetic licence’ as it were – and attempt to develop a critical analysis which is fully cognisant of its defects and limitations. This analysis hinges upon the concept of consciousness, which in its various forms is central to our appreciation of the content of the novel and our evaluation of its usefulness in geographical studies. In this chapter the concept of consciousness will be briefly reviewed before being applied in the evaluation of the works, particularly the coalfield novels, of D. H. Lawrence.
