Landscape, Nature, and the Body Politic: From Britain's Renaissance to America's New World

332 Pages·2002·3.209 MB·English

by  Kenneth Robert Olwig

Landscape, Nature, and the Body Politic

Landscape, Nature,
and the Body Politic
FROM BRITAIN’S RENAISSANCE
TO AMERICA’S NEW WORLD
Kenneth Robert Olwig
with a Foreword by Yi-Fu Tuan
THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS
The University of Wisconsin Press
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Madison, Wisconsin 53711-2059
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Copyright © 2002
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any format or by any means, digital, electronic,
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or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press,
except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Olwig, Kenneth
Landscape, nature, and the body politic : from Britain’s renaissance
to America’s new world / Kenneth Olwig ; foreword by Yi-Fu Tuan.
pp. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-299-17420-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-299-17424-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Great Britain—Historical geography. 2. Landscape—Political aspects—
Great Britain—History. 3. Land use—Political aspects—Great Britain—History.
4. Nature—Political aspects—Great Britain—History. 5. America—
Foreign public opinion, British. 6. Landscape—Great Britain—History.
7. Landscape in literature. 8. Renaissance—England. 9. Nature in literature.
10. Place (Philosophy) I. Title.
DA600 .O49 2002
304.2—dc21 2001006786
ISBN 978-0-299-17423-1 (e-book)
Contents
Illustrations vii
Foreword xi
Acknowledgments xxi
Introduction: Nature, Country, and Landscape xxiii
1. The Political Landscape as Polity and Place 3
2. Country and Landscape 43
3. “Masquing” the Body Politic of Britain 62
4. Landscaping the Body Politic of the British State 80
5. Landscaping Britain’s Country and Nature 99
6. Gendering the Nation’s Natural Landscape 125
7. Landscaping Racial and National Progress 148
8. The “Country” of the United States contra the
“Landscape” of America’s New World 176
Conclusion: Landscape, Place, and the Body Politic 213
Notes 231
Bibliography 261
Index 289
v

Illustrations
1.1. Sketch by Inigo Jones showing a woman, most likely
Queen Anne of Denmark, in masque headdress 4
1.2. The Queen’s House, Greenwich 6
1.3. Political map of Schleswig-Holstein before 1864 14
1.4. Pieter Brueghel’s Haymaking (ca. 1565) 24
1.5. Henrik Rantzau, age 63, at the height of his powers as
Royal Statholder in Schleswig-Holstein 27
1.6. Marcus Jordan’s 1585 map of Denmark 28
1.7. Detail from the Rantzau family tree 29
1.8. Prospect of Odense, Denmark 30
1.9. Ptolemy’s division of geography into geography proper,
chorography, and topography 33
1.10. Illustration from Albrecht Dürer, Underweyssung der
Messung 38
1.11. Claude Lorraine’s Landscape with Mercury and Argus
(ca. 1660) 39
2.1. Anonymous illustration showing Reverend Thomas
Wakefield and his parishioners breaking into Richmond
Park 57
3.1. Atrium from a 1632 masque entitled Albion’s Triumph 75
3.2. Inigo Jones’s final design for the emperor Albanactus of
Albion, for the masque Albion’s Triumph, showing
Roman-inspired garb 78
4.1. Portrait of Benjamin Jonson by Abraham van
Blyenberch (ca. 1617) 81
4.2. Portrait of Inigo Jones by Anthony van Dyck 83
vii
viii Illustrations
4.3. Engraved title page for the 1651 edition of Thomas
Hobbes’s Leviathan 88
4.4. “A Peaceful Country,” by Inigo Jones from the 1640
masque Salmacida Spolia 92
4.5. Background scenery for a scene by Inigo Jones for a
1632 masque, Tempe Restored 94
4.6. Plan of the stage and auditorium in Whitehall for the
play Florimène in 1635 95
4.7. Whitehall Banqueting House, by Inigo Jones from the
1623 masque Time Vindicated to Himself and to His
Honours 97
5.1. The Temple of Apollo, design by Inigo Jones from the
period 1630 to 1640 105
5.2. Temple of Ancient Virtue overlooking the Elysian fields,
Stowe 106
5.3. View across the Elysian fields and the River Styx
toward the Temple of British Worthies at Stowe 107
5.4. Bust of Inigo Jones at the Temple of British Worthies,
Stowe 109
5.5. “Ha-ha,” or sunken boundary line, at Stowe 113
5.6. The church is all that is left of the ancient village at
Stowe 115
5.7. Scene from Stourhead, from the vantage point of the
English village, looking out toward the classical
architecture inspired by Virgil’s Aneid 117
5.8. Pastoral idyll at Stowe 122
6.1. A Daughter of the Morn, probably from the 1611
masque Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly by
Jonson and Jones 129
7.1. A Daughter of Niger, from the 1605 Masque of
Blackness 155
7.2. The Old Blind Scottish Bard Sings his Swan Song to
the Accompaniment of His Harp, by Nicolai Abraham
Abildgaard (ca. 1785) 163
7.3. A Danish Coast: Motif from Kitnæs on the Isefjord by
J. Th. Lundbye (1843) 168
Illustrations ix
8.1. Village green, Sterling, Massachusetts 178
8.2. Natural Bridge of Virginia 180
8.3. Jefferson-Hartley Map of the Western Territory, 1784 181
8.4. Landscape Garden at Blenheim, designed by Lancelot
(Capability) Brown 196
8.5. Yellowstone National Park 196
8.6. Yosemite National Park 197
8.7. The 1879 church is all that survives from Yosemite
village 207
8.8. View of a former golf course from the visitor’s center at
Cape Cod National Seashore 209
8.9. Scene from Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park 209