Women, Literature, and the Domesticated Landscape
England's Disciples of Flora, 1780–1870

An interdisciplinary study of the 'domesticated' or home landscape as it shapes women's lives and their ways of writing.

Judith W. Page (Author), Elise L. Smith (Author)

9780521768658, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 January 2011

338 pages, 72 b/w illus.
24.4 x 17 x 2.1 cm, 0.74 kg

'Brady examines both the history of the concept and more contemporary re-appropriations of the term. Her two chapters on the Kantian understanding of sublimity are excellent, as is the final chapter on the environmental sublime. This book deserves to be regularly included in courses on aesthetics.' R. E. Kraft, Choice

Combining an analysis of literature and art, this book contends that the 'domesticated landscape' is key to understanding women's complex negotiation of private and public life in a period of revolution and transition. As more women became engaged in horticultural and botanical pursuits, the meaning of gardens - recognized here both as sites of pleasure and labor, and as conceptual and symbolic spaces - became more complex. Women writers and artists often used gardens to educate their readers, to enter into political and cultural debates, and to signal moments of intellectual and spiritual insight. Gardens functioned as a protected vantage point for women, providing them with a new language and authority to negotiate between domestic space and the larger world. Although this more expansive form of domesticity still highlighted the virtues associated with the feminized home, it also promised a wider field of action, re-centering domesticity outward.

Introduction
Part I. Moral Order: The School of Nature: 1. 'In the home garden': moral tales for children
2. The 'botanic eye': botany, miniature, and magnification
Part II. The Visual Frame: Constructing a View: 3. Picturing the 'home landscape': the nature of accomplishment
4. Commanding a view: the Taylor sisters and the construction of domestic space
Part III. Personal Practice: Making Gardens Grow: 5. Dorothy Wordsworth: gardening, self-fashioning, and creation of home
6. 'Work in a small compass': gardening manuals for women
Part IV. Narrative Strategies: Plotting the Garden: 7. 'Unbought pleasure': gardening in Cœlebs in Search of a Wife and Mansfield Park
8. Margaret Oliphant's Chronicles of Carlingford and the meaning of Victorian gardens
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Animals & nature in art [still life, landscapes & seascapes, etc AGN]