SOURCE: Gilbert, Elliot L. “‘Upward, Not Northward’: Flatland and the Quest for the New.” English Literature in Transition (1880-1920) 34, no. 4 (1994): 391-404.

In the following essay, Gilbert examines the themes of novelty and progress in Flatland.

When perceptible amounts of new phenomenal being come to birth, must we hold them to be in all points predetermined and necessary outgrowths of the being already there, or shall we rather admit the possibility that originality may thus instill itself into reality?

William James, Some Problems of Philosophy¹

“Your country of two dimensions is not spacious enough to represent me, a [Sphere] of three, but can only exhibit a slice or section of me, which is what you call a Circle. … You cannot indeed see more than one of my sections, or Circles, at a time, for you have no power to raise your eye out of the plane of Flatland; but...