Abstract
This chapter argues that cultural perspectives are necessary for integrated climate change research. By examining the history of perceptions of the natural world, primarily through literature and the genres of the pastoral and the picturesque in the eighteenth century and Romantic periods, the analysis shows how the English countryside was represented as a figurative rather than a literal space, which in turn became an ideological justification for the agrarian revolution: the enclosure and privatisation of common land; the migration of the workforce into industrial cities; and the commercialisation of the countryside for bourgeois leisure pursuits. Contemporary attitudes to the environment and hence climate change are based on these historical distortions. However, developing an awareness of ‘cultural environmentalism ’ and promoting innovative creative work can help introduce the notion of cultural stewardship into sustainable living.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Aikin, J. (1793), Letters from a Father to his Son, on Various Topics, relative to Literature and the Conduct of Life, J. Johnson: London.
Andrews, M. ed. (1994), The Picturesque: Literary Sources and Documents, 3 vols. Helm: Mountfield.
Andrews, M. (1989), The Search for the Picturesque: Landscape, Aesthetics, and Tourism in Britain, 1730–1800. Stanford University Press: Stanford.
Burke, E. (2008), A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, ed. Phillips, A., Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Chapman, C. and Crowden, J. (2005), Silence at Ramscliffe. Foot and Mouth in Devon, Bardwell Press: Oxford.
Clifford, S. and King, A. (2006), England in Particular: A Celebration of the Commonplace, the Local, the Vernacular and the Distinctive, Hodder & Stoughton: London.
Copley, S. and Garside, P. (1994), The Politics of the Picturesque: Literature, Landscape and Aesthetics since 1770, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Dark Mountain Project. (2009), Uncivilisation. Available from http://dark-mountain.net/about/manifesto/.
Defoe, D. (1725), A Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, Divided into Circuits or Journies, 3 vols, G. Strahan: London.
Freedland, J. (2012), ‘That Rebekah Brooks Text Message to David Cameron – Decoded’, www.guardian.co.uk, 14 June 2012.
Fulford, T. (1996), Landscape, Liberty and Authority: Poetry, Criticism and Politics from Thomson to Wordsworth, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Gay, J. (1716), Trivia: or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London, Bernard Lintott: London.
Gilpin, W. (1786), Observations, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, made in the Year 1772, on Several Parts of England; Particularly the Mountains, and Lakes of Cumberland, and Westmoreland, 2 vols, R. Blamire: London.
Goodridge, J. (2010), John Clare, Poetry and Community, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Gray, T. (2001), Thomas Gray’s Journal of his Visit to the Lake District in October, ed. Roberts, W., Liverpool University Press: Liverpool.
Groom, N. (2010), ‘“Al under the Wyllowe Tree”: Chatterton and the Ecology of the West Country’, in English Romantic Writers and the West Country, Roe, N. ed., Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, pp. 37–61.
Groom, N. (2017), ‘“Let’s discuss over country supper soon”: Rural Realities and Rustic Representations’, in Creating the Countryside: The Rural Idyll Past and Present, Elson, V. and Shirley, R. eds., Paul Holberton Publishing: London, pp. 49–60.
Groom, N. (2014), The Seasons: A Celebration of the English Year, Atlantic: London.
Hartman, G. (1970), Beyond Formalism, Yale University Press: New Haven, Conn.
Hazlitt, W. (1819), Lectures on the English Poets, 2nd ed. Taylor and Hessey: London.
Johnson, S. (2006), The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets; with Critical Observations on their Works, ed. Lonsdale, R., 4 vols, Clarendon Press: Oxford.
Keats, J. (1982), Poetical Works, ed. Garrod, H. W., Oxford University Press: Oxford and New York.
Kingsnorth, P. (2008), Real England: The Battle Against the Bland, Portobello: London.
Landry, D. (2001), The Invention of the Countryside: Hunting, Walking and Ecology in English Literature, 1671–1831, Palgrave: Basingstoke.
Law, J. (2010), ‘Care and Killing: Tensions in Veterinary Practice’, in Mol, A., Moser, I. and Pols, J. eds, Care in Practice: On Tinkering in Clinics, Homes and Farms, Transcript Verlag: Bielefeld, pp. 57–69.
Lowenthal, D. and Prince, H. C. (1972), ‘English Landscape Tastes’, in English, P. W. and Mayfield, R. C. eds, Man, Space, and Environment: Concepts in Contemporary Human Geography, Oxford University Press: New York and London.
Mason, W. (1783), The English Garden: A Poem, A. Ward: York.
Morton, T. (2007), Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass. and London.
Newby, H. (1985), Green and Pleasant Land? Social Change in Rural England, 2nd ed., Avebury: Aldershot.
Payne Knight, R. (1794), The Landscape, A Didactic Poem, W. Bulmer and Co.: London.
Price, U. (1794), An Essay on the Picturesque, as compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful; and, On the Use of Studying Pictures, for the Purpose of Improving Real Landscape, J. Robson: London.
Price, U. (1796), An Essay on the Picturesque, as compared with the Sublime and Beautiful; and, on the Use of Studying Pictures, for the Purpose of Improving Real Landscape, J. Robson: London.
Price, U. (1810), Essays on the Picturesque, as compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful; and, On the Use of Studying Pictures, for the Purpose of Improving Real Landscape, 3 vols, J. Mawman: London.
Rawlinson, W. G. (1878), Turner’s Liber Studiorum: A Description and a Catalogue, Macmillan and Co.: London.
Repton, H. (1794), Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening, W. Bulmer and Co.: London.
Robert, J. (1743), The Rational Farmer, and Practical Husbandman, n. p.: London.
Thomson, J. (1730), Autumn. A Poem, J. Millan: London.
Thomson, J. (1958), Letters and Documents, ed. McKillop, E. D., University of Kansas Press: Lawrence.
Thomson, J. (1972), The Seasons and The Castle of Indolence, ed. Sambrook, J., Clarendon Press: Oxford.
Thomson, J. (1727), Summer. A Poem, J. Millan: London.
Thomson, J. (1726), Winter. A Poem, 2nd ed. J. Millan: London.
Turner, J. (1979), The Politics of Landscape: Rural Scenery and Society in English Poetry, 1630–1660, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass.
Warton, J. (1782), An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, 2nd ed, 2 vols J. Dodsley: London.
White, S. J. (2014), Romanticism and the Rural Community, Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke.
Willes, M. (2014), The Gardens of the British Working Class, Yale University Press: New Haven and London.
Wordsworth, D. (2002), The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals, ed. Woof, P., Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Wordsworth, W. (1979), The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850, ed. Wordsworth, J., Abrams, M. H. and Gill, S., W. W. Norton: New York and London.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Groom, N. (2017). Plastic Daffodils: The Pastoral, the Picturesque, and Cultural Environmentalism. In: Elliott, A., Cullis, J., Damodaran, V. (eds) Climate Change and the Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55124-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55124-5_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-55123-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-55124-5
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)