chorography

Film Intro – Letters to the Landscape

startind

A box was found in an attic, along with old photographic equipment, containing family photographs, letters and over 300 postcards of Brontë Country.  Polaroids, pinhole photographs and a map were also found in the box. This film is inspired by this collection.

Literary Landscapes

startind

Sixty maps, a gazetteer, and critical essays place the great writers of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland against the background of their native regions. Identifies geographic locations mentioned in the works of English authors and discusses the influence locations may have had on their work.

Contents:

–Chaucer’s world: Chaucer’s London; Touring with Chaucer’s pilgrims; Chaucer overseas: the country of his mind —
–Shakespeare’s London —
–Dr. Johnson’s London —
–Charles Dickens’s London —
–Virginia Woolf’s London : a walking tour with Mrs. Dalloway —
–Bath —
–Lake poets —
–Romantic poets abroad —
–Bronte country —
–Thomas Hardy’s Wessex —
–Blackening of England —
–Scotland in literature : Kidnapped: a topographical novel; Edinburgh —
–Dublin of Yeats and Joyce: After Parnell; Wanderings of Ulysses; Other testimony —
–Atlas and gazetteer section: Atlas; General gazetteer; London gazetteer; Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Inns of Court; Schools; Geographical index.

Landscape and English National Identity

startind

“People have always attached meaning to the landscape that surrounds them. In Storied Ground Paul Readman uncovers why landscape matters so much to the English people, exploring its particular importance in shaping English national identity amid the transformations of modernity. The book takes us from the fells of the Lake District to the uplands of Northumberland; from the streetscapes of industrial Manchester to the heart of London. This panoramic journey reveals the significance, not only of the physical characteristics of landscapes, but also of the sense of the past, collective memories and cultural traditions that give these places their meaning. Between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, Englishness extended far beyond the pastoral idyll of chocolate-box thatched cottages, waving fields of corn and quaint country churches. It was found in diverse locations – urban as well as rural, north as well as south – and it took strikingly diverse forms.”

Image and text reproduced from Amazon