Research Catalog
The English garden : meditation and memorial
- Title
- The English garden : meditation and memorial / David R. Coffin.
- Author
- Coffin, David R.
- Publication
- Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©1994.
Items in the Library & Off-site
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Use in library | SB457.6 .C64 1994 | Off-site |
Details
- Description
- xiii, 270 pages : illustrations; 25 cm
- Summary
- More so than other Europeans, the English have turned to their gardens or wooded "wildernesses" for contemplative consolation. To explore the meditative aspect of English garden-making, David Coffin combines selected poetry, diary extracts, letters, and more formal writing from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries with charming illustrations and his own perceptive commentary
- The English saw the impermanence of life in "weather-beaten heads" of flowers that "not seun dayes before had flourished in their full prime," and their gardens were often decorated with sundials and ruins. Addressing not only admirers of the English garden but students of English cultural history more generally, Coffin shows that the English emphasis on transience was a key to their gardening and their literary style
- To nonconformists' seeking a relationship with the deity, for instance, the English garden was a confessional. For a time the concept of the medieval hermit living in solitude in the wilds of nature also became popular, but this notion lost its religious motivation, and garden hermitages were then used as sites for entertainments of various kinds.
- The ancient idea of burial in a garden or park was more successfully revived, however, and pyramids, obelisks, and triumphal columns commemorated the rulers, heroes, and friends of those who suffered, or enjoyed, the "English malady" of melancholy.
- Subject
- 1600-1799
- Gardens, English > History > 17th century
- Gardens, English > History > 18th century
- Gardens > England > History > 17th century
- Gardens > England > History > 18th century
- Gardens > Symbolic aspects > History > England > 17th century
- Gardens > Symbolic aspects > History > England > 18th century
- Garden structures > England > History > 17th century
- Garden structures > England > History > 18th century
- Gardens > symbolic aspects
- Gardens > history > 17th century
- Garden structures
- Gardens
- Gardens, English
- Gardens > Symbolic aspects
- Gartenkunst
- Geschichte
- Landschaftsgarten
- Tuinen
- Letterkunde
- Engels
- Meditatie
- Begrafenissen
- Jardins > Grande-Bretagne > Angleterre (GB) > Aspect symbolique > 1500-1800
- Jardins anglais > Histoire > 17e siècle
- Jardins anglais > Histoire > 18e siècle
- Jardins > Angleterre (GB) > 18e siècle
- England
- England
- Großbritannien
- Genre/Form
- History.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- Introduction -- Transience -- Meditation -- Hermits, Goths, and Druids -- Burial in the Garden -- Monuments and Memorials -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index.
- ISBN
- 069103432X
- 9780691034324
- LCCN
- 93034998
- OCLC
- ocm29221872
- 29221872
- SCSB-2021616
- Owning Institutions
- Princeton University Library