Between the Georgic and the Pastoral: The British Weald

Joinson, S. (2021) Between the Georgic and the Pastoral: The British Weald. In: A History of English Georgic Writing. Cambridge University Press, pp. 296-315. ISBN 9781009019507

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Abstract

Torn between Georgic and Pastoral, the British Weald is a landscape regarded as embodying ‘Englishness’, but also geographically ‘on the edge’ of the nation. Richard Jeffries revered the downs and Weald. W. H. Hudson was an evocative depicter of a romanticised version and guidebooks including E.V. Lucas’s The Highways and Byways of Sussex (1904) and Arthur Beckett’s The Spirit of the Downs (1909) coaxed city-dwellers to countryside that was not ‘too country’. The Georgic-Pastoral was treated parodically by Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm (1932) offering a subversive deflation of rural narratives. Despite this, the continuing appeal of landscape narratives is evident in the success of James Rebanks’s The Shepherd’s Life (2015). Drawing on Hudson’s similarly titled book, he locates shepherding within a history of landscape suggesting that images of ‘Englishness’, encapsulated in familiar livestock and gently turning seasonal rhythms, serve a purpose in imagining a national identity poised between Georgic and Pastoral.

Publication Type: Book Sections
Uncontrolled Keywords: W. H. Hudson, Richard Jefferies, Weald, Sussex, Georgic, Edwardian Regional Guidebooks, Arthur Beckett, EV Lucas, Stella Gibbons, Rebanks, Shepherding, Literature, Renaissance and Early Modern Literature, English Literature 1700-1830
Subjects: D History General and Old World > D History (General)
D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Divisions: Academic Areas > Institute of Arts and Humanities > English and Creative Writing
Academic Areas > Institute of Arts and Humanities > History
Research Entities > Chichester Centre for Critical and Creative Writing
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Brigitte Kaltenbacher
Date Deposited: 17 Jan 2023 10:25
Last Modified: 17 May 2024 13:22
URI: https://eprints.chi.ac.uk/id/eprint/6641

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