Benedictine Farm was created with reverence to the gardens and landscapes of the European Middle Ages (5TH-15TH C) with the overall subject matter being that of the Pastoral Genre. The curated enviornment encompasses 62 acres in rural Worthington, Pennsylvania. On three acres of the land, a number of gardens have been replicated based on 16TH century design and philosophies of the natural world; A Herbularius (Medicinal herb garden), Hortus (Vegetable garden), a Flowering mead, a Hortus Conclusus (Enclosed garden) and an Orchard. Among the acreage (locus amoenus), paths have been set for contemplative walks, eventually reaching a patch of woods at the top of the land. At the base of the gardens, sits an acre pond to catch fish from. Period correct, Heritage breed chickens free range the fields, providing high quality eggs.
The construction of the gardens and the chosen genus of the herbs, vegetables and flowers have been informed by in depth research of monastic records, herbals, and manuscripts of the European Middle Ages. Literature, paintings, poetry and travels to European historical sites, visited by founder, Cassandra Reilly, have also been utilized.
With a comprehensive range of medicinal plants, cooking herbs, flowers, and vegetables grown with organic practices, Benedictine Farm prepares Tisanes (herbal teas), elixirs, ointments, and skincare blended from the monastic concepts of holistic healing.
Open for visitations those interested in Horticultural History; examining how the natural landscape, gardens, the arts, literature and bucolic lifestyle informed one another for centuries.
As Benedictine Farm continues to grow, it will entertain all facets of "the Arts" pertaining to the Pastoral. i.e. Immersive events, lectures, and performances. Skill based workshops will be taught by artisans that are experienced in traditional craft that proved useful tot he self sufficient lifestyle of the people throughout the European countryside.
What is the Pastoral Genre?
The construction of the gardens and the chosen genus of the herbs, vegetables and flowers have been informed by in depth research of monastic records, herbals, and manuscripts of the European Middle Ages. Literature, paintings, poetry and travels to European historical sites, visited by founder, Cassandra Reilly, have also been utilized.
With a comprehensive range of medicinal plants, cooking herbs, flowers, and vegetables grown with organic practices, Benedictine Farm prepares Tisanes (herbal teas), elixirs, ointments, and skincare blended from the monastic concepts of holistic healing.
Open for visitations those interested in Horticultural History; examining how the natural landscape, gardens, the arts, literature and bucolic lifestyle informed one another for centuries.
As Benedictine Farm continues to grow, it will entertain all facets of "the Arts" pertaining to the Pastoral. i.e. Immersive events, lectures, and performances. Skill based workshops will be taught by artisans that are experienced in traditional craft that proved useful tot he self sufficient lifestyle of the people throughout the European countryside.
What is the Pastoral Genre?
|
APOLOGIA> Here, I will attempt to explain the history of Arcadia and the Pastoral tradition. It is necessary to give a brief cultural history, recount the origins of the genre and to describe the motive behind this project's emphasis on the Middle Ages. Secondly, I will outline how the genre morphed through successive generations, defining the perception of the countryside i.e man in nature while consistently keeping its fundamental ideals from Hellenistic Greece into the dawn of the Romantic movement. In closing, I want to clarify how this informs Benedictine Farm project, illuminating the common thread running through each era. This is and exceptionally shortened overview; to give a definitive work on the Pastoral tradition would fill innumerable volumes.
Pastoral in a few words, is a literary phenomenon; a tradition born out of a longing for Arcadia; a more "simplistic life' in harmony with Nature in opposition to the excessive city. It originated in the bucolics of Theocritus and Virgil's Eclogues during Classical Antiquity and served as a main influence to painters, writers, poets, architects, garden designers and composers until the end if the 18TH century, the dawn of the Romantic movement.
KEY TERMS
ARCADIA (GREEK: ApKádia): a region in Greece located the central finger of the Peloponnese. In Ancient Greece, its fascination lay in the remote distance from the city of Athens, regarded as a bucolic setting where cave dwelling shepherds and their God of nature, Pan resided. In later terminology; a physical and metaphysical place of the locus amounts in the Pastoral tradition.
PASTORAL (Latin: pastor>shepherd) works of literature pertaining to a sometimes idealized version of the countryside. Themes of shepherds, shepherds, country dwelling poets in remote wooded landscapes, unrequited love and the corruption of city dwelling are utilized.
IDYLL (Greek: eidos>picture) The most idealized form in Pastoral literature; an extremely happy or peaceful, picturesque scene, usually unsustainable.
BUCOLIC (Greek:boukolos>herdsman) a more realistic form of poetry in the pastoral mode with a focus on animals and the pangs of labour.
LOCUS AMOENUS translates from Latin the "pleasant place" used by modern scholars to refer to an idyllic landscape in painting or literary terms typically involving trees, shade, meadows, running waters and song birds.
ECLOGUE a short Pastoral poem
GEORGIC (Greek: geōrgos>farmer) a poem or book dealing with agricultural or real topics; specifically on the toil in opposition to the more leisurely qualities of the Idyll. Earth-Work; field work.
PASTOURELLE Medieval (Old) French lyric form concerning the emotions of love in the shepherds and shepherdess.
ORIGINS> The culture of Hellenistic Greece was one that honored Gods living among nature, not an ascended God of later Christianity. Spirits intermingled with those living on Earth in harmony with nature. This defines their veneration of the natural world and disposition to seek and embrace euphoria found in the natural landscape.
The founding go the Greek city, Alexandria in 332BC marks the first time in history people felt trapped by their urbanized surroundings. Simultaneously, the Stoic philosophy was developing which continued to be influential well into the Christian Era. It's concept was based around the "simple life", the aim of the philosophy is to live in harmony with nature and the guiding principle is reason. To enable on to turbot and embrace reason, moderation must be exercised in all areas of natural existence; one must become free of desires for externals, look inward, and live simply.
Alexandria fostered nostalgia for the familiar natural landscape that the people has so recently lost, hence the melancholic yearning for the unspoiled countryside in opposition to the more civilized city life.1 During these changes in Ancient Geek culture, the genre finds its origins. The Pastoral mode is born, blossoming through the writings of Theocritus, with his innovative bucolic poems and Idylls around 260BC.
A further development of this concept, in the praise of the simple (uncomplicated and close to nature) rustic way of life is utilized by Virgil; with the composition of his Eclogues in 42BC as a rejection to the invasive changes being made to his environs, the monumental city of Rome. The genre gained wide spread recognition through his works.
INTRO TO THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES> In 476AD the deterioration of the Roam Empire commences and a time that has been termed the "Dark Ages' i.e the Early Middle Ages begins in Europe. This turbulent Migration Period is arguably the shift that shaped the whole of the Western world along with the rise of Christianity and the decline of Pagan/Ancestral Gods. Already, the deliberations of the Ancient Stoic Philosophers and the concept of the "simple life' is readily embraced by the writers and the thinkers of the Early Christian Era. Once the ideas had been filtered though the sieve of Christian beliefs, it informed thought entirely during the Middle Ages. The monastic orders represent the realization of the Stoic ideals with the physical removal from the source of disharmony.
It is notable the the term "Dark Ages' is one not born in the Dark Ages but in the 14TH and 15TH centuries; among the scholars of the Italian Renaissance who imagined themselves looking back tot he world of Classical Antiquity and saw themselves as being more like those people than of those in the Middle Ages; Classical Antiquity held wisdom and their revival of it was wise but the middle part was inferior. In any case, this was their formed opinion we need not adopt.2 It was a time of dynamic development and cultural creativity. The demeaning opinion that the Renaissance collected, chooses to ignore that despite there being a slower pace of cultural advancement before 1000AD due to literacy constraints of spreading knowledge quickly because of long distance networking; this alternative pace of intellectual content or influence nurtured Mysticism, contemplation, spiritual depth and supported the ethereal mind of the people. They could be more individual, more peculiar, and they could think in ways that were not bound by the rigid logic of scholasticism-and might more often be left alone to do so.3 Many saints, nuns, and cave dwelling monks of the Middle Ages were deeply imbedded in the "higher knowing", the language of the natural world through Solitude and inner wisdom (temet nosce). However, most of Christian Mysticism posed a grave treat to institutional authority. Eventually, with the hopeless corruption of the church by secular power, many of them were unfortunately surpassed with gross force.
A governing thought trough tout the Early Middle Ages evolves based int he new theological perspective and rejection of ancient authorities, that Nature was evil and man's vices were an expression of his base animal instincts. This doctrine was solidified in the teachings of "the Fall" i.e Adam and Eve when "man fell away from the unity of God through temporal forms and carnal senses." (Saint Augustine) The woman, like the garden they inhabit, are simultaneously forces of nature and culture, inasmuch as both derive their power from the fertility and chaos associated with nature, but lonely to achieve perfection when tamed by culture- or cultivated by either Christian morality or the spade.4 The Medieval garden appears to have dialogue with this threatening phenomena of the physical world, the people sought mental and physical protection from the harsh wilderness. Thus, the popularity of the Hortus Conclusus i.e the Enclosed Garden in the Early Middle Ages; a confined source of solace and safety from ones surroundings, focusing the mind in the Divine, celestial territory the sky. The ever present walls created a contained and exclusive world in which one could look beyond the walls to the wilderness where monks would still exile themselves to tame their own disorderly nature. Some of the fears of the outside world were justified for the Early Middle Ages make some of themes turbulent times in European history (religious executions, migration, plague, hunger, war). Permanent and colossal change is not something that develops overnight if authentic, nor does it come to fruition without awkwardness. The people were newly finding their place in the world having just been introduced to many aspects of culture in their infancy.
The indulgent pleasures of the wilderness seen in Hellenistic culture were concealed and new Christianized ideas of Heaven/ Arcadia and connection to the highest Divinity are introduced. Virgin Mary relates Venus; an unearthly paradise prevails over an early one as monastic simplicity comes to replace the nymph accompanied Pan.
A correlations its here with the emotions prevalent during the founding of Alexandria, however one may fond to, a secured "home" in a natural setting is sought after; Monastic, Pagan, or personal.
"...those things are called simple that are truly Divine because in them quality and substance are the same; and they are themselves divine or wise or happy without being so by participation in something not themselves."
-Saint Augustine
|
|
This is not to imply that the people if the Middle Ages had a lack of Consideration or utilization of the natural world and aesthetics; simply, beauty was now prized and enjoyed only for its contribution to a sense of purposefulness and productivity, working with and fulfilling God's creation.
Medieval persons knew life was shaped by the vegetal world; plants controlled every aspect of being; clothing, light, food, shelter, medicine. Plants were an indicator of the time of year and were utilized as a catalyst to connect to tan inexplicable force.
The importance of agricultural and horticultural work to a major monastic order like the Benedictines would inevitably lead to a comprehendible appreciation of the natural world in Medieval culture. The natural world becomes recognized as a gift from God to be honored but not worshiped. Popular imagery of Christ as the Gardener and Christ as a shepherd strengthen the theme.
Above: Bacchanal of the Andirons Titian,
Below: Christ as the gardener Wenceslas Cobergher, mural painting of Christ as a Shepherd in the catacomb of Priscilla in Rome c.275, Christ as a shepherd Jean Baptist de Champaigne
Medieval persons knew life was shaped by the vegetal world; plants controlled every aspect of being; clothing, light, food, shelter, medicine. Plants were an indicator of the time of year and were utilized as a catalyst to connect to tan inexplicable force.
The importance of agricultural and horticultural work to a major monastic order like the Benedictines would inevitably lead to a comprehendible appreciation of the natural world in Medieval culture. The natural world becomes recognized as a gift from God to be honored but not worshiped. Popular imagery of Christ as the Gardener and Christ as a shepherd strengthen the theme.
Above: Bacchanal of the Andirons Titian,
Below: Christ as the gardener Wenceslas Cobergher, mural painting of Christ as a Shepherd in the catacomb of Priscilla in Rome c.275, Christ as a shepherd Jean Baptist de Champaigne
|
|
Benedictines practiced discipling the body in physical and social isolation, often extreme landscape settings to inspire physical, spiritual and mental wellbeing in symphony with Nature; physical and spiritual health were again becoming recognized was indivisible and administered and recorded impeccably by the 12TH C Benedictine abbess, Hildegard von Bingen.
This similar idea of setting or Locus Amoenus is utilized as a structural element in Medieval poetic and epic texts (i.e. Roman de la Roses, Remede de Fortune, Floire et Blanchefleur) the tradition traced back to Theocritus. No where was the shepherd under pastoral influence such an important theme in literature as in France during the Medieval period. Shepherdess and rustic women play an important run win lyrical poetry, inasmuch a genre is named after them, Pastourelle.5 In the 12TH century, this vernacular literature has come into its own as its audience extends; nobility and gentry begin to show interest in the songs and poems of the troubadours.
INTRO TO THE LATE MIDDLE AGES/EARLY RENAISSANCE > The love of nature was also sustained through Virgil's unwavering popularity.
In support of the former point; defending the "Dark Ages"--under the rule of Saint Benedict, every monastery was required to have am library. Classical poetry, Virgil's works, Theocritus, and Ancient Latin literature were tediously copied and illuminated in Scriptoriums by the Benedictines and preserved in the monastic libraries at St. Gall where the promulgation of ancient literature was a core feature of monastic life.
By the 12TH C there were growing signs of an increasing mistrust of Medieval scholasticism; Italian scholar, gardener and poet Petrarch (1304-1374) questioned his contemporary doctrine and is most credible for this rediscovery or unveiling of nature during the Middle Ages6. (The ascent of Mount Ventoux)
Entering the Renaissance, the early Medieval fear of nature begins to be replaced by the delight of the senses once again. We will find that the achievement of the Renaissance was to make it possible for man to come to terms with the natural world, within he context of existing Medieval doctrine.
RENAISSANCE> The genre reaches its zenith in the High Middle Ages into the Renaissance. Scholars and Artists begin studying and reflecting on the newly rediscovered knowledge of Ancient Greek and Roman culture. The literature and philosophy of Arcadian and bucolic themes were examined with reverence to the natural grandeur of the recent past; the fascination with the Pastoral begins to materialize with the new opportunities in the Arts through intellectual circles.
The bucolic and Pastoral tradition is ironically utilized by the influx of wealthy elite as an escape physically and metaphysically from the stress and fallacies of the court and public life. But, for the Pastoral to be appropriated in this way, it first had to undergo a fundamental shift in meaning. The necessity of human toil, the work and labour that was so essential, was antithetical to most poetic discourse and the freedoms of country life so, the human laborer had to become anonymous int he pastoral landscape; only then could the country landowner use the intellect and poetic framework of the Pastorals to justify his own position and harmony in the countryside. 7 So, it is during this time a more comprehensive and diffused concept of the Pastoral is conceived and obtained. The shepherd and farmer are either absent in literature, painting and poetry or depicted in a more idyllic style. Pastoral operas and plays are written and performed for the nobility, fascinated with the separate normality and the simple country charms; an authenticity they idealized and were deeply longing for in their highly public and fabricated lives.
"Foundations seems to be connected to revival. Something was there and then we revive it periodically. An attempt to attach this new place to an older history, an Ancient world, a great tradition. Almost to say we are not something brand new, we are the best manifestation now of what is richest in the old."
-Thomas F.X Noble
Countless artists immortalized the Pastoral. Artist Giorgione, poets Jacopo Sannazaro, Sidney, and Pierre de Ronsard, Titian who termed his painting 'Posie"; paintings were recognized as visual equalivants of poetry, missing only movement, sound and fragrance. The emergence of Landscape artists, namely Claude Lorrain, found success in portraying the countryside in his paintings not from reality but from invented landscapes, based on the cultivated viewers understanding of the landscape dependent on the pastoral text his patrons were reading. They made use of the ancient poet, Horace's words. "ut pictura poesis" (as is painting so is poetry)
Scipione was a recognized patron of the Arts and garden developer for the Borghese family Country home. He drew on Classical and Medieval design, in both practical management and the estates iconography. He appreciated there was no better way to demonstrate the family's association with the past than through the use of the Pastoral. Lavish gatherings were held and poet Guidiccione was employed to recited pastoral poems while animals grazed around him.8 Catherine d' Medici contributed to the lifestyle with the construction of a Pleasure Dairy and at Fontainebleau where idyllic operas were performed.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT> With the advancements of the Renaissance matured and the Age of Enlightenment unfolding, an important shift in though solidified. Supported by Newton's discoveries and the appreciation of the cosmos, God is the supreme artist. By raising art to the level of Divine activity the artist was now akin to God, working the same way, if at a lower level. This learned adornment of the raw and natural world defined the tradition in garden design, poetry, paintings and architecture.
The Dutch Golden age that developed fully in the Renaissance, introduced a "scientific realism" of the rural landscape. However, the Dutch were anxious to associate themselves with the European aristocracy. Their country estates and natural landscapes gave birth to its own poetic style, the Hofdicht (country house poem) regarded as the most important pastoral poetry of 17TH C Holland.9 Their poetry and views of nature are more melancholic and differ greatly from those of France and Italy.
Below: French artist Francois Boucher Pastoral scene, Dutch Landscape
This similar idea of setting or Locus Amoenus is utilized as a structural element in Medieval poetic and epic texts (i.e. Roman de la Roses, Remede de Fortune, Floire et Blanchefleur) the tradition traced back to Theocritus. No where was the shepherd under pastoral influence such an important theme in literature as in France during the Medieval period. Shepherdess and rustic women play an important run win lyrical poetry, inasmuch a genre is named after them, Pastourelle.5 In the 12TH century, this vernacular literature has come into its own as its audience extends; nobility and gentry begin to show interest in the songs and poems of the troubadours.
INTRO TO THE LATE MIDDLE AGES/EARLY RENAISSANCE > The love of nature was also sustained through Virgil's unwavering popularity.
In support of the former point; defending the "Dark Ages"--under the rule of Saint Benedict, every monastery was required to have am library. Classical poetry, Virgil's works, Theocritus, and Ancient Latin literature were tediously copied and illuminated in Scriptoriums by the Benedictines and preserved in the monastic libraries at St. Gall where the promulgation of ancient literature was a core feature of monastic life.
By the 12TH C there were growing signs of an increasing mistrust of Medieval scholasticism; Italian scholar, gardener and poet Petrarch (1304-1374) questioned his contemporary doctrine and is most credible for this rediscovery or unveiling of nature during the Middle Ages6. (The ascent of Mount Ventoux)
Entering the Renaissance, the early Medieval fear of nature begins to be replaced by the delight of the senses once again. We will find that the achievement of the Renaissance was to make it possible for man to come to terms with the natural world, within he context of existing Medieval doctrine.
RENAISSANCE> The genre reaches its zenith in the High Middle Ages into the Renaissance. Scholars and Artists begin studying and reflecting on the newly rediscovered knowledge of Ancient Greek and Roman culture. The literature and philosophy of Arcadian and bucolic themes were examined with reverence to the natural grandeur of the recent past; the fascination with the Pastoral begins to materialize with the new opportunities in the Arts through intellectual circles.
The bucolic and Pastoral tradition is ironically utilized by the influx of wealthy elite as an escape physically and metaphysically from the stress and fallacies of the court and public life. But, for the Pastoral to be appropriated in this way, it first had to undergo a fundamental shift in meaning. The necessity of human toil, the work and labour that was so essential, was antithetical to most poetic discourse and the freedoms of country life so, the human laborer had to become anonymous int he pastoral landscape; only then could the country landowner use the intellect and poetic framework of the Pastorals to justify his own position and harmony in the countryside. 7 So, it is during this time a more comprehensive and diffused concept of the Pastoral is conceived and obtained. The shepherd and farmer are either absent in literature, painting and poetry or depicted in a more idyllic style. Pastoral operas and plays are written and performed for the nobility, fascinated with the separate normality and the simple country charms; an authenticity they idealized and were deeply longing for in their highly public and fabricated lives.
"Foundations seems to be connected to revival. Something was there and then we revive it periodically. An attempt to attach this new place to an older history, an Ancient world, a great tradition. Almost to say we are not something brand new, we are the best manifestation now of what is richest in the old."
-Thomas F.X Noble
Countless artists immortalized the Pastoral. Artist Giorgione, poets Jacopo Sannazaro, Sidney, and Pierre de Ronsard, Titian who termed his painting 'Posie"; paintings were recognized as visual equalivants of poetry, missing only movement, sound and fragrance. The emergence of Landscape artists, namely Claude Lorrain, found success in portraying the countryside in his paintings not from reality but from invented landscapes, based on the cultivated viewers understanding of the landscape dependent on the pastoral text his patrons were reading. They made use of the ancient poet, Horace's words. "ut pictura poesis" (as is painting so is poetry)
Scipione was a recognized patron of the Arts and garden developer for the Borghese family Country home. He drew on Classical and Medieval design, in both practical management and the estates iconography. He appreciated there was no better way to demonstrate the family's association with the past than through the use of the Pastoral. Lavish gatherings were held and poet Guidiccione was employed to recited pastoral poems while animals grazed around him.8 Catherine d' Medici contributed to the lifestyle with the construction of a Pleasure Dairy and at Fontainebleau where idyllic operas were performed.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT> With the advancements of the Renaissance matured and the Age of Enlightenment unfolding, an important shift in though solidified. Supported by Newton's discoveries and the appreciation of the cosmos, God is the supreme artist. By raising art to the level of Divine activity the artist was now akin to God, working the same way, if at a lower level. This learned adornment of the raw and natural world defined the tradition in garden design, poetry, paintings and architecture.
The Dutch Golden age that developed fully in the Renaissance, introduced a "scientific realism" of the rural landscape. However, the Dutch were anxious to associate themselves with the European aristocracy. Their country estates and natural landscapes gave birth to its own poetic style, the Hofdicht (country house poem) regarded as the most important pastoral poetry of 17TH C Holland.9 Their poetry and views of nature are more melancholic and differ greatly from those of France and Italy.
Below: French artist Francois Boucher Pastoral scene, Dutch Landscape
|
|
The French were fabricating a vogue of the Pastoral tradition. A woman of such nobility and influence, Marie Antionette, exemplified the trend. The idealized paintings of François Boucher were seemingly put into motion at Versailles. Le Petit Trianon, the garden complex for the queen was built with a hameaua and a Pleasure Diary, reminiscent if Catherine de Medici's. The Pleasure Daiy was a place that the queen could partake in simple pleasure connected to nature with her children. An opportunity to rescue her sense of self without being scrutinized by the public eye. She practiced gardening and the milking of cows signifying the new religions of nature and la vie champêtre. Stanislas Leszczynski, (Louis XV's father in law) built several rustic cottages at Château of Lunéville in 1740. These Cottage were named "Les Chartreuses" after building inhabited by the Carthusian monks. He would invite his courtiers to reside in these monastic pavilions where they were obliged to till their own gardens and tend to the cows.10
The 18TH C French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, did assist in shaping the Pastoral through his novel, La Nouvelle Heloïse: Letters of Two Lovers who live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps. However, his philosophies surrounding nature were exceedingly original and genius; this fostered the Rousseauian reform. He drove the pastoral ideas of the Enlightenment to a new place. The French began to interact with the landscape in a more bucolic, authentic, and sentimental way as their thoughts were reformed through Rousseau's emotions. Often referred to as the Noble Savage, he examined self awareness and moral conduct in a more monastic way, through Solitude and contemplation instead of the public and communal engagements seen in society and nobility. He encourage women to retreat to the countryside for health, advocated for breastfeeding in nature and adhering to the more 'useful' aspects of the pastoral tradition. Popular 18TH C author, Madame de Genlis, sought to combat he nervous condition by living in a cow stable for a months time. Known as the "cow house method" women were promoted to lead the city and spend time in a stable, laying with calves, listening to the heartbeat and consuming a strict milk diet. The practice was popularized by English physician, Thomas Beddoes.
Rousseau's spirit was to the Romantic/Sentimental Period what Petrarch was the the Renaissance; a catalyst.
SENTIMENTALIST/ROMANTIC MOVEMENT> The Sentimental movement that surrounded the Romantic poets was the birth of a new set of ideas. It was a state of mind and nature was largely their religion. One should feel everything with their heart having grown tired of the sterile, analytical and reasonable process that defined the Enlightenment. It was a step towards reconstructing a more genuine society while reacting against the coming modern world and urbanization. The sentimental Romantics seem to find their own Classical revival of the ancient bucolic spirit in their surrounding countryside, through the country dwelling/ Laboring class poets and the Raw Genius. They glorified the natural state of man, idolizing the underdog for escaping the entrapment of modern ideals. Irish poet, Oliver Goldsmith published his very well received poem Deserted Village in 1770. The poem is a criticism of rural depopulation, landscape gardening, and moral corruption in pursuit of wealth in the newly founded urban areas.
Another dominant theme connecting vacancy to thoughtfulness during this time is the resurgence of Petrarch's poetry and Medieval architecture. The revival of Medieval structures and culture paid homage to what had been lost, it harks back to a preindustrial past,a time before much of Europe grew obsessed with advancement11. The chivalry and Medieval love poetry supplied the people with what they felt was absent in a homogenized, controlled culture.
The most renowned English Romantic poet, William Wordsworth, was persistently responsive to the cultural and material remains; the routines and structure; the landscapes and architecture of the Medieval Monastic system. Especially that of the Benedictine order
which was predominant throughout England. Wordsworth's thinking about monasticism offers new insight into a range of important issues in his poetry and prose, including the historical resonances of the landscape,local attachment and memorialization, gardening and cultivation, silence and solitude, pastoral retreat and national identity. Wordsworth celebrates not just the monastic ruins but also the humble cottages that "remind the contemplative spectator of a production of nature, and may rather be said to have been grown than to have been erected."12
CONCLUSION> From Theocritus in Ancient Greece all the way through to William Wordsworth in the English countryside , we feel an echoing theme; a search for 'home', authenticity and truth in Nature and reflecting inward.
The above possibilities of the Pastoral each entertain the aspect of the physical removal from the source of discord (poets, monks, nuns, hermits, country dwellings) but also a psychological type of Pastoral which informs the strivings and writings of the philosophers, painters, poets, and garden designers of Classical Antiquity, the Early Christian Era, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Sentimentalist of the Romantic Period.
Theocritus finds his physical and spiritual Arcadia in the countryside of Greece and immortalizes it through his poetry. Himself and his contemporaries strove to protect this microcosm because of how deeply it resonated with their unadulterated state of happiness. A state of contentment streaming from a source, never fully to be understood, that engulfed them internally and engaged them in physical form.
Virgil eternalizes images of bees and shepherds, his family's farm and other vanishing lands in Italy through his Eclogues. His genius and sentiment inspired the thoughts of poets and artists for centuries. It struck their nostalgia as they experienced their own ever changing sense of the countryside.
Hermit, Saint Benedict, sets apart his own secluded piece of earth, for himself and others to embark on a closeness to Divinity through solitude and working the land, becoming akin to its rhythmic pattern.
Titian visually captured the Pastoral through his brush strokes; a replica of the countryside, a created souvenir of the emotions held within the landscape.
Jean-Phillip Rameau paired the frequency of sound to the pastoral theme in his compositions.
We can find inspiration and understanding in escape artists like Marie-Antoinette and Catherine d' Medici for utilizing nature's charms and its innate ability to connect one to euphoric authenticity in a world of artifice, such as their own.
Keats and Wordsworth consumed by Nature's language, personified flowers, rain, trees. streams, birds and breezes. So absorbed by their rare ability; decoding beauty through communication with the natural world, they were left with little choice but to dedicate their lives to unveiling that beauty with their ink wells.
The Benedictine order was the source of knowledge in a new and fragile time. The structure understood the essence of nature, its medicinal value, and the utilization of the land as a vital part of ones time on earth while using books to turn the mental soil of those cloistered. Their comprehension of knowledge and truth found in their own solitary Arcadia changed the world around them.
Without placing judgement on the individual's or groups way of finding this 'truth' and 'home through Nature', they are all serving what once was had, even if imaginary.
"Monasticism exists as a residual presence, which is inscribed the landscape, in architecture, even trees. Indeed, such natural features, relics and ruins have increased value because they carry that "incommunicable sanctity--which time and nature can only bestow"13
NOTES
1.Ruff, A., Arcadian Visions, p.2
2.FX Noble, Thomas, Great Courses Lectures
3.Spearing, Elizabeth, Writings on Medieval Female Spirituality
4.Augspach, The Garden as a Woman's Space, 7
5. E. Kegel-Brinkgreve, The Echoing Woods, p.235
6.Ibid.,p.24
7.ibid
8.M.Martin, Dairy Queens The Politics of Pastoral Architecture
9.Ruff, A., Arcadian Visions
10.Ibid
11. Augustus Pugin
12. J. Fay, Wordsworth's Monastic Inheritance
13. Ibid.
The 18TH C French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, did assist in shaping the Pastoral through his novel, La Nouvelle Heloïse: Letters of Two Lovers who live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps. However, his philosophies surrounding nature were exceedingly original and genius; this fostered the Rousseauian reform. He drove the pastoral ideas of the Enlightenment to a new place. The French began to interact with the landscape in a more bucolic, authentic, and sentimental way as their thoughts were reformed through Rousseau's emotions. Often referred to as the Noble Savage, he examined self awareness and moral conduct in a more monastic way, through Solitude and contemplation instead of the public and communal engagements seen in society and nobility. He encourage women to retreat to the countryside for health, advocated for breastfeeding in nature and adhering to the more 'useful' aspects of the pastoral tradition. Popular 18TH C author, Madame de Genlis, sought to combat he nervous condition by living in a cow stable for a months time. Known as the "cow house method" women were promoted to lead the city and spend time in a stable, laying with calves, listening to the heartbeat and consuming a strict milk diet. The practice was popularized by English physician, Thomas Beddoes.
Rousseau's spirit was to the Romantic/Sentimental Period what Petrarch was the the Renaissance; a catalyst.
SENTIMENTALIST/ROMANTIC MOVEMENT> The Sentimental movement that surrounded the Romantic poets was the birth of a new set of ideas. It was a state of mind and nature was largely their religion. One should feel everything with their heart having grown tired of the sterile, analytical and reasonable process that defined the Enlightenment. It was a step towards reconstructing a more genuine society while reacting against the coming modern world and urbanization. The sentimental Romantics seem to find their own Classical revival of the ancient bucolic spirit in their surrounding countryside, through the country dwelling/ Laboring class poets and the Raw Genius. They glorified the natural state of man, idolizing the underdog for escaping the entrapment of modern ideals. Irish poet, Oliver Goldsmith published his very well received poem Deserted Village in 1770. The poem is a criticism of rural depopulation, landscape gardening, and moral corruption in pursuit of wealth in the newly founded urban areas.
Another dominant theme connecting vacancy to thoughtfulness during this time is the resurgence of Petrarch's poetry and Medieval architecture. The revival of Medieval structures and culture paid homage to what had been lost, it harks back to a preindustrial past,a time before much of Europe grew obsessed with advancement11. The chivalry and Medieval love poetry supplied the people with what they felt was absent in a homogenized, controlled culture.
The most renowned English Romantic poet, William Wordsworth, was persistently responsive to the cultural and material remains; the routines and structure; the landscapes and architecture of the Medieval Monastic system. Especially that of the Benedictine order
which was predominant throughout England. Wordsworth's thinking about monasticism offers new insight into a range of important issues in his poetry and prose, including the historical resonances of the landscape,local attachment and memorialization, gardening and cultivation, silence and solitude, pastoral retreat and national identity. Wordsworth celebrates not just the monastic ruins but also the humble cottages that "remind the contemplative spectator of a production of nature, and may rather be said to have been grown than to have been erected."12
CONCLUSION> From Theocritus in Ancient Greece all the way through to William Wordsworth in the English countryside , we feel an echoing theme; a search for 'home', authenticity and truth in Nature and reflecting inward.
The above possibilities of the Pastoral each entertain the aspect of the physical removal from the source of discord (poets, monks, nuns, hermits, country dwellings) but also a psychological type of Pastoral which informs the strivings and writings of the philosophers, painters, poets, and garden designers of Classical Antiquity, the Early Christian Era, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Sentimentalist of the Romantic Period.
Theocritus finds his physical and spiritual Arcadia in the countryside of Greece and immortalizes it through his poetry. Himself and his contemporaries strove to protect this microcosm because of how deeply it resonated with their unadulterated state of happiness. A state of contentment streaming from a source, never fully to be understood, that engulfed them internally and engaged them in physical form.
Virgil eternalizes images of bees and shepherds, his family's farm and other vanishing lands in Italy through his Eclogues. His genius and sentiment inspired the thoughts of poets and artists for centuries. It struck their nostalgia as they experienced their own ever changing sense of the countryside.
Hermit, Saint Benedict, sets apart his own secluded piece of earth, for himself and others to embark on a closeness to Divinity through solitude and working the land, becoming akin to its rhythmic pattern.
Titian visually captured the Pastoral through his brush strokes; a replica of the countryside, a created souvenir of the emotions held within the landscape.
Jean-Phillip Rameau paired the frequency of sound to the pastoral theme in his compositions.
We can find inspiration and understanding in escape artists like Marie-Antoinette and Catherine d' Medici for utilizing nature's charms and its innate ability to connect one to euphoric authenticity in a world of artifice, such as their own.
Keats and Wordsworth consumed by Nature's language, personified flowers, rain, trees. streams, birds and breezes. So absorbed by their rare ability; decoding beauty through communication with the natural world, they were left with little choice but to dedicate their lives to unveiling that beauty with their ink wells.
The Benedictine order was the source of knowledge in a new and fragile time. The structure understood the essence of nature, its medicinal value, and the utilization of the land as a vital part of ones time on earth while using books to turn the mental soil of those cloistered. Their comprehension of knowledge and truth found in their own solitary Arcadia changed the world around them.
Without placing judgement on the individual's or groups way of finding this 'truth' and 'home through Nature', they are all serving what once was had, even if imaginary.
"Monasticism exists as a residual presence, which is inscribed the landscape, in architecture, even trees. Indeed, such natural features, relics and ruins have increased value because they carry that "incommunicable sanctity--which time and nature can only bestow"13
NOTES
1.Ruff, A., Arcadian Visions, p.2
2.FX Noble, Thomas, Great Courses Lectures
3.Spearing, Elizabeth, Writings on Medieval Female Spirituality
4.Augspach, The Garden as a Woman's Space, 7
5. E. Kegel-Brinkgreve, The Echoing Woods, p.235
6.Ibid.,p.24
7.ibid
8.M.Martin, Dairy Queens The Politics of Pastoral Architecture
9.Ruff, A., Arcadian Visions
10.Ibid
11. Augustus Pugin
12. J. Fay, Wordsworth's Monastic Inheritance
13. Ibid.
Two Founders of Benedictine Farm