GARDENS, LANDSCAPE,
& LITERATURE IN ENGLAND 1650 TO 1850:
“WHAT ARE MEN TO ROCKS & MOUNTAINS?”
The Meeman Center for
Lifelong Learning
Six Thursdays, January 19 –
February 23
5:30 – 7:30 pm $180
Led by Michael Leslie,
Ph.D. (husband of MG Alice Leslie!)
University of Edinburgh
Professor of English
Literature
Dean of British Studies at
Oxford
England’s most famous
contribution to the visual arts is probably the great garden tradition of the
18th century and after: the “English Landscape Garden,” or “Jardin
Anglais,” or “Englischer Garten.” We see
its effects still in Memphis, in the design of Overton Park, the Dixon Gardens,
and even the campus of Rhodes College.
In this course we’ll consider the origins of the English landscape
garden and the ideas and attitudes that contribute to it: admiration of classical literature and art,
the idealization of Italy in the works of Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin,
the sense of England as an empire of liberty, changing ideas of nature, and
much more. To explore the topic, we’ll
read literary works and look at images of many of the great surviving landscape
gardens, such as Stowe, Stourhead, Blenheim, Castle Howard, Rousham, Studley
Royal, Rievaulx; examine the way the form changes; and end with some of the
American landscapes most clearly connected with that tradition: New York’s Central and Prospect Parks,
designed by Frederick Law Olmsted; and George Kessler’s Overton Park in
Memphis.
Handouts will be provided.
To register, visit www.meeman.rhodes.edu
Or call Cissy Whitaker at
901-843-3965
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