The Idea of Landscape and the Sense of Place 1730-1840: An Approach to the Poetry of John Clare - Softcover

Barrell, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521181321 ISBN 13: 9780521181327

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2011

Synopsis

It is generally agreed that in the early eighteenth century people began to be interested in landscape as something to have a 'taste' for; that they saw landscape through the eyes of the great painters, and that later pictures, poetry and landscape gardening all reflect that taste. Dr Barrell examines this interest, showing how the taste for landscape affected the poetry in detail. John Clare, who lived most of his life in rural Northamptonshire, whose landscape was being transformed by enclosure, is then taken as the focus of these different attitudes. Clare's truthfulness to the individual locality he wanted to describe would not permit him to use the conventional literary language of his predecessors, and he had instead to find his own language. His success in doing this removed him from mainstream English poetry. This 1972 text brings 'taste' into contact with the social and economic bases of life.

About this title

Book Description:

John Clare, who lived most of his life in rural Northamptonshire, whose landscape was being transformed by enclosure, is taken as the focus of different attitudes to landscape as something to have a 'taste' for. This 1972 text brings 'taste' into contact with the social and economic bases of life.

About the Author:

John Barrell is professor in the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York. He is the author of numerous books, including "The Spirit of Despotism: Invasions of Privacy in the 1790s".

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0521181321
• ISBN 13: 9780521181327
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 262