Wordsworth's GardensTexas Tech University Press, 2001 - 224 pages Readers of the poems of William Wordsworth have likely encountered at least in some small way his love of the garden and gardening. And those who've visited the Great Britain's Lake District know well that Wordsworth was master of more than one craft.Each year, thousands of visitors from throughout the world treat themselves to an enchanting taste of Wordsworthian England on the grounds of Dove Cottage and Rydal Mount. There they find themselves awed by the aesthetic of the poet who designed the functional and pleasure grounds of the Wordsworth family gardens.Whether you've ever had the fortune to stroll the very terraces on which Wordsworth paced out his lines for posterity, you can do so again and again in this elegant full-color photo study by Carol and Richard Buchanan.In all of Wordsworth scholarship, no one has so definitively connected the themes of Wordsworth's poetry to his philosophy of gardening or has truly in one work demonstrated how nature in the raw and rocky Lake District became the soul and backbone of a poet and gardener who would not be enslaved by the tastes of his day.Counterposing poems of the garden and the letters and journals of Wordsworth and his eloquent sister Dorothy, Carol Buchanan, in her quiet and sensitive manner, manages to picture the whole Wordsworth: poet, gardener, and devoted and longsuffering family man. Illuminating Buchanan's perspective on Wordsworth's gardens, and on the Lake District that shaped Wordsworth's sensibilities, are three never-before-published garden plans and more than one hundred breathtaking photographs by Richard Buchanan.The general layout and functional economy of the argument and explanations are very satisfying--like walking through a well ordered garden; and the authority of Buchanan's discussions of the gardening work and thoughts of the Master is worn so unassumingly that no reader will be intimidated, yet scholarly readers will recognize the thoroughness of her study and be delighted at their own level.--Mark L. Reed |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 17
Page xii
... example of understanding the poet's purpose of de- sign , and one that I shared with Carol and Dick , is the discovery of why the poet placed his summerhouse in Rydal Mount where he did . It only became obvious to me when we cleared the ...
... example of understanding the poet's purpose of de- sign , and one that I shared with Carol and Dick , is the discovery of why the poet placed his summerhouse in Rydal Mount where he did . It only became obvious to me when we cleared the ...
Page 5
... example , Pope satirized topiary , a popular feature of formal gardens , as being too artificial and unnatural . He lists some statues carved from yew and other greenery , supposedly offered to him for sale ; among them are Adam and Eve ...
... example , Pope satirized topiary , a popular feature of formal gardens , as being too artificial and unnatural . He lists some statues carved from yew and other greenery , supposedly offered to him for sale ; among them are Adam and Eve ...
Page 7
... example of a model garden.3 In his own garden , as in his poetry , to imitate the classics was to imitate nature . The delight of his life , Pope's garden featured classical struc- tures ; one pathway ended at a small temple . The house ...
... example of a model garden.3 In his own garden , as in his poetry , to imitate the classics was to imitate nature . The delight of his life , Pope's garden featured classical struc- tures ; one pathway ended at a small temple . The house ...
Page 8
... has been maintained as an example of his work . ( Photograph by Richard Buchanan reproduced with the cooperation of Blenheim Palace . ) Photograph of Grasmere from the summit of Loughrigg Fell ,. Wordsworth's Gardens | 8.
... has been maintained as an example of his work . ( Photograph by Richard Buchanan reproduced with the cooperation of Blenheim Palace . ) Photograph of Grasmere from the summit of Loughrigg Fell ,. Wordsworth's Gardens | 8.
Page 9
... example of the neoclassical principle of art imitating nature . If the serpentine line is a beautiful line , then it is the line streams would flow in if they could achieve the ideal . Therefore , the stream should be rerouted to ...
... example of the neoclassical principle of art imitating nature . If the serpentine line is a beautiful line , then it is the line streams would flow in if they could achieve the ideal . Therefore , the stream should be rerouted to ...
Contents
THE ODE AND THE DUNG | 23 |
THE LOVE OF FLOWERS DOVE COTTAGE | 55 |
A Gardening Partnership | 60 |
The Gardens Structure | 64 |
The Love of Gardening | 72 |
The Plants | 74 |
Life in the Garden | 81 |
The Garden Today | 83 |
Doras Rock | 130 |
The Healing Garden | 134 |
Building the Garden | 135 |
The Terraces | 138 |
The Voice of Waters | 154 |
The Plantings | 159 |
The Kitchen Garden | 172 |
The Garden Today | 173 |
THE GARDEN AS POEM THE WINTER GARDEN AT COLEORTON | 89 |
A Gift of Friendship | 90 |
Beginning of the Winter Garden | 94 |
The Design | 95 |
The Winter Garden Today | 109 |
ROCK OF AGES THE RYDAL MOUNT GARDEN | 115 |
The Situation of the Property | 118 |
The Traumatic Years | 120 |
Poetry of the Rydal Mount Years | 123 |
Spiritual Shift | 125 |
The Symbolism of Stone | 129 |
WORDSWORTHS GARDEN LEGACY | 177 |
Portfolio of Lake District Scenes | 183 |
WORDSWORTHS GARDENS IN HIS POETRY | 195 |
THE PLANTS | 199 |
DESCRIPTION OF THE GARDEN BY CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH JR | 205 |
RHODODENDRONS INTRODUCED INTO BRITISH CULTIVATION | 207 |
Notes | 209 |
Selected Bibliography AND FURTHER READING | 213 |
219 | |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic auricula beauty birds bloom Carol celandine Coffin Trail Coleorton Coleridge color compartment Cottage garden crowfoot daffodils delight Dora's Field Dora's Terrace Dorothy Wordsworth Dorothy's Dove Cottage early purple orchid English Essay Farther Terrace feet flowers foxglove garden design garden plan George Kirkby Grasmere Green Terrace Helm Crag holly honeysuckle inscription Isabella's Terrace journal kitchen garden Lady Beaumont Lake District landscape design laurel lawn lesser celandine letter lily living London Loughrigg Fell mosses mountain Narcissus native plants nature neoclassical orchard orchid Osmundine fern Oxford pathways photograph picturesque poem poet Pope primrose Primula Racedown Lodge Ranunculus Repton rhododendrons rose Rydal Mount Rydal Mount garden Rydal Water Shenstone shrubs Sloping Terrace Sonnet species spirit stone steps stone wall sublime summer house sycamore thyme trees University Press walk wild William and Dorothy William Wordsworth Winter Garden Wordsworth Trust Wordsworth wrote Wordsworth's gardens write
Popular passages
Page xiii - tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. The birds around me hopped and played, Their thoughts I cannot measure : — But the least motion which they made, It seemed a thrill of pleasure. The budding twigs spread out their fan, To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there.
Page xiii - I HEARD a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran ; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man.
Page 5 - The Tower of Babel, not yet finished. St. George in box : his arm scarce long enough, but will be in a condition to stick the dragon by next April. A green dragon of the same, with a tail of ground-ivy for the present.
Page 7 - If we would copy Nature, it may be useful to take this Idea along with us, that Pastoral is an image of what they call the golden age.