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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.
List of contents
1. Introduction - David Haigron.- 2. Part I: Rural Communities and Modernity: The English Countryside as an Invested Space - 2. Rural Protest in England - Brendan Prendiville.- 3. Agents, Beneficiaries and Victims: Picturing People on the Land - Jonathan Bignell & Jeremy Burchardt.- 4. Visions of Rurality in Popular British Fictional Television Series from the 1970s to the Present Day - Renée Dickason.- 5. Part II: Praised Harmony and Revealing Dissonance: The English Countryside as a Resonant Space - 5. Rural Landscape in Patrick Keiller's Robinson in Space and Robinson in Ruins - Georges Fournier.- 6. London's Parks, Suburbs and Environs: The English Countryside through the Eyes of French Visitors (1814-1914) - Richard Tholoniat.- 7. 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.- 8. Going and Staying: Traditional Music in the Poetry of Thomas Hardy - Dennis Siler.- 9. Part III: Exploration and Meaning: The English Countryside as a Liminal Space - 9. "The Innocent Island": A Language of Violence in Woolf and Bowen - Gregory Dekter.- 10. Rosamond Lehmann's In-between Landscapes: Taking Possession of the "Empty Pastoral Scene" - Jessica Le Flem.- 11. Rural Sites: Transformations and Experiment in the Poetry of Mark Goodwin - Kerry Featherstone.
About the author
David Haigron is Senior Lecturer in British Studies at the University of Rennes 2, France. He is the author of The UK’s Political Landscape in the 21st Century (2014) and co-edited Social Class on British and American Screens (2016).
Summary
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.
