The ut pictura poesis tradition and English neo-classical landscape poetry / Flemming Olsen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Olsen, Flemming.

Series:

University of Southern Denmark studies in literature ; v. 57.

University of Southern Denmark studies in literature ; vol. 57

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English poetry--18th century--History and criticism.

English poetry.

Landscapes in literature.

Physical Description:

274 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Odense : University Press of Southern Denmark, 2013.

Summary:

The parallel between poetry and painting harks back to Antiquity. It seemed obvious because both arts appeal to the intellect as well as the eye. In his Ars poetica (approx. 20 b.C.), Horace gave a terse formulation of the parallel: ut pictura poesis. Later critics dislodged what was in Horace just an obiter dictum, from its context, which in Horace referred to the appropriate distance of a beholder/reader from a picture/text. In English literature, the Neo-Classical cult of the Ancients straddling the year 1700 produced a spate of translations of Horace's Ars poetica, and the translators' accompanying comments suggest a wide range of idiosyncratic applications of the Latin poet's maxim. One form of poetical expression of the parallel particularly favored by English Neo-Classical poets was landscape description. However, 'landscapes' had to fight opposition on two fronts, viz. the rigid Neo-Classical canon, and the prevalent mold of the description of outdoor scenery as seen in eg pastorals. This book traces the development of the maxim ut pictura poesis from a topos to a genre, viz. the Neo-Classical landscape poem. The typical poem belonging to that genre, which is given a detailed analysis in the book, contains a number of stock ingredients that meet the eyes of a beholder, who is also the narrator. Underneath the scene is a low-key social analogy, an intimation of a virtually unspoiled utopian society. At the same time, an undertone of anxiety for the preservation of this summum bonum is perceptible, and in James Thomson's landscapes dating from the 1720s, the reader feels the approach of the attitude to the items of natura naturata that we find in Wordsworth and Keats. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The Parallel 9

Chapter 2 The Parallel in the Neo-Classical Age 11

Chapter 3 Neo-Classical Aesthetics 27

Chapter 4 Locus Amoenus and the Pastoral Landscape. Earlier Landscapes 45

Chapter 5 Neo-Classicism and Landscapes 55

Chapter 6 Some Obstacles to the Emergence of the Landscape Poem as a Literary Genre 65

Chapter 7 Factors Favouring the Emergence and Establishment of the Orthodox Neoclassical Type of Landscape Poem 73

Chapter 8 From Topos to Genre 87

Chapter 9 The Ingredients of the Neo-Classical Landscape Poem 97

Chapter 10 Some Examples Illustrating the Neo-Classical Landscape Convention in Poetry 121

Chapter 11 The Crumbling of the Canon 165

Chapter 12 The Landscapes of James Thomson's Seasons 201.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

8776746631

9788776746636

OCLC:

830370830