Rural Scenes and National Representation: Britain, 1815-1850

Elizabeth K. Helsinger

Published by Princeton University Press 1996

Rural Scenes and National Representation

Britain, 1815-1850

Elizabeth K. Helsinger

In the series Princeton Legacy Library

Volume 343 in the series Literature in History

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400864379

Overview
Contents

About this book

Elizabeth Helsinger's iconoclastic book explores the peculiar power of rural England to stand for conflicting ideas of Britain. Despite the nostalgic appeal of Constable's or Tennyson's rural scenes, they record the severe social and economic disturbances of the turbulent years after Waterloo. Artists and writers like Cobbett, Clare, Turner, Emily Brontë, and George Eliot competed to claim the English countryside as ideological ground. No image of rural life produced consensus over the great questions: who should constitute the nation, and how should they be represented? Helsinger ponders how some images of rural life and land come to serve as national metaphors while others challenge their constructions of Englishness at the heart of the British Empire.

Drawing on recent work in social history, nationalism, and geography, as well as the visual and literary arts, Helsinger recovers other possible and alternative readings of social ties embedded in the imagery of land. She reflects on the power of rural images to transfer local loyalties to the national scene, first popularizing then institutionalizing them. By turning a critical gaze on these scenes, she comments on the difference between art and ideology, and the problems and dangers of asserting any kind of national identity through imagery of the land.

Originally published in 1996.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Reviews

Helsinger's discussions of images and texts offer new and important insights into the political and cultural uses of the countryside, and they will essential reading for anyone interested in that history of this period. While it is impossible to do justice to the scope, interest, and nuance of her arguments, this review must suffice to say that this is the kind of book students of British landscape painting and literature will turn to again and again with pleasure and profit.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ILLUSTRATIONS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
INTRODUCTION. LAND AND THE NATION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I. ICONS AND AUDIENCES
ONE. CONSTABLE: THE MAKING OF A NATIONAL PAINTER Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
TWO. OUT OF THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY: TENNYSON’S ENGLISH IDYLS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
PART II. CONTESTED GROUND
THREE. COBBETT’S RADICAL HUSBANDRY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
FOUR. CLARE AND THE PLACE OF THE PEASANT POET Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
FIVE. TURNER’S ENGLAND AND WALES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	162
SIX. BRONTE’S GHOSTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
RETROSPECT. ELIOT’S RISKY HISTORY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291

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