Englishness and Landscape
ENGLISHNESS AND LANDSCAPE
Among the literary works there is a multitude of icons and symbols of England spread with a great literary craftsmanship. The natural environment, the geographical frames or the historical background have a strong connection with the concept of Englishness. Starting with a beautiful rose, the national flower of England which has an interesting symbolic history and getting to Stonehenge with its famous appearance in Hardy's Tess D'Urbervilles, we discover the English particularities in paintings, literature, sculpture, etc. There would be many things to say about Englishness or landscape, but the most relevant ones are those which remained as time passes by. The oak tree, the rose, the Big Ben, The Royal Crown are all part of the English landscape. But landscape doesn't mean only the natural or geographical context. By landscape we should understand also the social, the cultural, the political aspects which characterized England along its development. The meaningful images from Dickens 'Oliver Twist or David Copperfield , the economic and social rough conditions of that period help us merge into the Victorian England landscape. The writers, the painters, the artists in general, improved the concept of Englishness by make it widen all over the world. Beginning with the eighteenth century appeared an appreciation of the possibility of using images as historical evidence for social and economical conditions. The class-specific nature of landscape representations is thus reinforced by absences and this establishes the connection with the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The break created between reality and representation proves the complicity of landscape representation in a socio-economic change process. The
Among the literary works there is a multitude of icons and symbols of England spread with a great literary craftsmanship. The natural environment, the geographical frames or the historical background have a strong connection with the concept of Englishness. Starting with a beautiful rose, the national flower of England which has an interesting symbolic history and getting to Stonehenge with its famous appearance in Hardy's Tess D'Urbervilles, we discover the English particularities in paintings, literature, sculpture, etc. There would be many things to say about Englishness or landscape, but the most relevant ones are those which remained as time passes by. The oak tree, the rose, the Big Ben, The Royal Crown are all part of the English landscape. But landscape doesn't mean only the natural or geographical context. By landscape we should understand also the social, the cultural, the political aspects which characterized England along its development. The meaningful images from Dickens 'Oliver Twist or David Copperfield , the economic and social rough conditions of that period help us merge into the Victorian England landscape. The writers, the painters, the artists in general, improved the concept of Englishness by make it widen all over the world. Beginning with the eighteenth century appeared an appreciation of the possibility of using images as historical evidence for social and economical conditions. The class-specific nature of landscape representations is thus reinforced by absences and this establishes the connection with the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The break created between reality and representation proves the complicity of landscape representation in a socio-economic change process. The