Introduction

It is impossible – and also somewhat pointless – to include all English-language texts that contain some sort of reference to Zurich. Accordingly, this platform presents a selection of texts, albeit an extensive one, based on the criteria outlined below.

While the project is aimed at the general public, it does have a basis in literary critical debate and academic research. For those interested, a short sketch of this academic basis is included below.

There are different selection criteria for prose fiction and drama on the one hand, and for poetry on the other. Accordingly, these are outlined separately here. However, there is one general principle shared across these categories, namely that self-published works are not usually included on the Zurich in Anglophone Literatures platform.

Prose Fiction and Drama

In the case of prose fiction and drama, only those texts are included that meet at least one of the following three criteria:

1. The text features at least one reasonably significant scene set in Zurich.
2. The text contains a description of Zurich that is particularly evocative and/or interesting.
3. The text revolves around Zurich in some key way (i.e. it is what Barbara Piatti has termed a projected place).

While the first of these three criteria is relatively straightforward, it may be worth providing some concrete examples for the second and third.

The following constitutes an example for (2), i.e. a relatively brief but nevertheless particularly interesting reference – interesting because it's tone is rather unusually enthusiastic:

• "'[W]e have seen places [...] that I should put a long way before Rome. [...] There's Zürich,' she observed; 'I think Zürich is lovely; and we hadn't heard half so much about it." (Henry James. Daisy Miller. 1878. Eds. Geoffrey Moore and Patricia Crick. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin, 1986. 83.)

As to (3) Donald Freed's Is He Still Dead? (1990) is a good example of a text that revolves around Zurich even though not a single scene of this play is actually set there. Freed's play about James and Nora Joyce is set entirely in Paris in 1940, but one of its central concerns is the two protagonists' desperate wish to escape to Zurich before German troops reach the French capital. Given the centrality of Zurich in this play, it makes sense for it to be included.

Even so, a large number of texts will not meet any of the three criteria outlined above. If one were to attempt to include any and all Anglophone works that reference Zurich, the number of texts on this website would become unmanageable. There are, for example, countless spy novels and thrillers that feature one or two references to a 'Zurich bank account,' or to a 'bank in Zurich.' As nothing much is gained by including dozens or even hundreds passing references to Zurich as a financial center, these are not usually included in the List of Texts, nor on the Interactive Map.

Similarly, passing references to Zurich as a place with little or no 'narrative weight' (like the following from novels by two – very famous – authors) are not usually included:

• "They came to Zürich, then, before very long, ran under the mountains, that were deep in snow." [The characters immediately move on to Innsbruck, and they never return to Zurich.] (D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love. 1920. London: Martin Secker, 1921. 418.)
• "After that he was in a department store in Zürich. Their losses from shoplifting were rather above the average while he was with them." [No further reference is made to this episode, which appears in a list of past offenses perpetrated by one of the characters.] (Agatha Christie. A Murder Is Announced. 1950. New York: Pocket Books, 1951. 99.)

In neither of these two novels does Zurich constitute a significant setting, nor are these descriptions of Zurich particularly evocative or interesting, nor do the texts revolve around Zurich in any meaningful way. Accordingly, they feature neither in the List of Texts nor on the Interactive Map.

Poetry

In contrast to prose fiction and drama, poems are generally included even if they only contain the briefest of references to Zurich – mainly because poetry is a type of text in which even minor elements tend to be highly significant.

The exception to this rule are longer narrative poems, where passing references are treated in much the same way as outlined above, in the case of prose fiction and drama.

What is to be gained from compiling a vast corpus of text connected by a single, rather random feature, e.g. that they are all (partly) set in, or at least reference, Zurich?

One reason why such a project is interesting from an academic point of view is that, too often, literary history is written on the basis of a very small corpus of texts that were selected because of their supposed literary merit. The Italian literary critic Franco Moretti has long criticized the absurdity of this position:

[I]f everyone behaved like literary critics who only study what they 'like,' doctors might restrict themselves to studying only healthy bodies and economists the standard of living of the well-off. (Signs Taken for Wonders 14)

A literary geographical approach is one way of avoiding 'preemptive' value judgements. Instead, the corpus of texts is compiled on the basis of a – relatively – objective criterion (in this case, its link to Zurich). This allows us to study not just the masterpieces, but also the flawed, the average, the ridiculous, etc.: in some ways, a much more representative sample of literary history.

Once these texts have been compiled, one can start searching for patterns: What kind of geographical 'hotspots' do we find? What thematic or other clusters become apparent? And what are the significant and/or surprising absences? Most of us are used to reading individual texts; as Franco Moretti has put it, in his essay "The Novel: History and Theory,"

texts are designed to 'speak' to us, and so, provided that we know how to listen, will always end up telling us something; but archives are not meant to address us, and so they say absolutely nothing until one asks the right question. (in: Distant Reading 165)

Literary geography is, arguably, one way of finding the right type of questions for reading an archive, rather than individual texts.

Finally, literary geography focuses our attention on the importance of space in literature as well as beyond. As Richard T. Tally, Jr. suggests:

Literary geography implies a form of reading that focuses attention on space and spatiality in the texts under consideration. But it also means paying attention to the changing spatial or geographical formations that affect literary and cultural productions. (Spatiality 80)

If space is a crucial nexus of social power, then analyzing the construction of fictional spaces (including their relation to real-life locations) may contribute to a broader understanding of power relations: how they shape literature and culture, but also how they may in turn be shaped by literary and cultural imaginaries – especially, perhaps, in an era of global 'modernities' shaped by "modern cartography, global interconnectedness, capitalism, colonial exploitation, the so-called 'Westphalian' state system and nationalism" (Riquet, "Framing the Debate" 8).