The ‘Englishness’ of the English landscape garden and the genetic role of literature: a reassessment

Abstract

Ever since the publication of Nikolaus Pevsner's seminal article The genesis of the picturesque',¹ the problem of how national the English landscape garden can reasonably be proved to be has engaged the attention of scholars, particularly art historians. A remarkable intensification of interest in the eighteenth-century landscape garden has been observable for some time now and seems to call for at least a provisional stocktaking together with the reopening of the question of the national character of the new work of art. I would like to do so by casting a fresh glance at the genetic role of literature. My thesis is that the part adopted by literature in theoretically paving the way for and giving practical assistance to the landscape garden movement sheds important light on the issue. In order to focus more sharply on the problem I will pay particular attention to a question which, though omitted by Pevsner and hardly discussed thoroughly up to now, is nevertheless indispensable for heuristic purposes: why was literature able to play such an outstanding part genetically.²