The English Countryside: Representations, Identities, Mutations

Description

This collection of essays examines representations of the English countryside and its mutations, and what they reveal about a nation’s, communities’ or individuals’ search for identity – and fear of losing it. Based on a pluridisciplinary approach and a variety of media, this book challenges the view that the English countryside is an apolitical space characterised by permanence and lack of conflict. It analyses how the pastoral motif is actually subverted to explore liminal spaces and temporalities. The authors deconstruct the “rural idyll” myth to show how it plays a distinctive and yet ambiguous part in defining Englishness/Britishness. A must read for both scholars and students interested in British rural and cultural history, media and literature. Front Matter ....Pages i-x Introduction (David Haigron)....Pages 1-31 Front Matter ....Pages 33-33 Rural Protest in England (Brendan Prendiville)....Pages 35-59 Agents, Beneficiaries and Victims: Picturing People on the Land (Jonathan Bignell, Jeremy Burchardt)....Pages 61-82 Visions of Rurality in Popular British Fictional Television Series from the 1970s to the Present Day (Renée Dickason)....Pages 83-111 Front Matter ....Pages 113-113 Rural Landscape in Patrick Keiller’s Robinson in Space and Robinson in Ruins (Georges Fournier)....Pages 115-135 London’s Parks, Suburbs and Environs: The English Countryside through the Eyes of French Visitors (1814–1914) (Richard Tholoniat)....Pages 137-155 Myths of ‘Old England’ Revisited: Thomas Hardy’s Dissonant Representations of Rural Spaces in Under the Greenwood Tree, Far from the Madding Crowd, and the Woodlanders (Thierry Goater)....Pages 157-174 Going and Staying: Traditional Music in the Poetry of Thomas Hardy (Dennis Siler)....Pages 175-198 Front Matter ....Pages 199-199 ‘The Innocent Island’: A Language of Violence in Woolf and Bowen (Gregory Dekter)....Pages 201-221 Rosamond Lehmann’s In-between Landscapes: Taking Possession of the ‘Empty Pastoral Scene’ (Jessica Le Flem)....Pages 223-240 Rural Sites: Transformations and Experiment in the Poetry of Mark Goodwin (Kerry Featherstone)....Pages 241-261 Back Matter ....Pages 263-273