Poetry and Landscape

Professor John Barrell of Sussex University looks at eighteenth-century landscape paintings and poetry which describes landscapes, in the context of their social and political background. He argues that landscape was seen as a metaphor for society, providing either a justification for, or a critique of, the established order. The program falls into four parts:

1
The organization of eighteenth-century landscape painting to look like theatre sets and a comparison with equivalent techniques in poetry

2
The political significance of such a procedure, related to the different layers of society

3
The contrast in paintings between formalized landscape gardens and `natural' landscape and its significance as a metaphor for degrees of freedom

4
The layering of society represented in rural poetry and in visual representations of rural life.

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