Landscape

Stewart, David (2022) Landscape. In: The Oxford Handbook of Romantic Prose. Oxford University Press, Oxford. (In Press)

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Abstract

The interaction between writing and landscape is central to Romanticism. Nonfictional prose plays a crucial role in this relationship. A common view is that prose plays a supporting role in the creation of Romantic landscapes. Prose presents fact, which poetry and fiction transform into cultural landscapes. This chapter reconsiders the relationship between prose and landscape. Rather than seeing prose as a factual backdrop to the creative transformations of place that characterize Romanticism, it considers a series of innovations in prose forms that think through the complex ways in which land is shaped in a period deeply concerned with that very process. Drawing on contemporary theories of landscape, ecocriticism, and recent research in Romantic environmental studies, the chapter explores work by a diverse range of writers including Ann Radcliffe, Dorothy Wordsworth, Mary Wollstonecraft, and James Hogg to claim the distinctive value of non-fictional prose in discussions of Romanticism, place, and the environment.

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