“Sowell,” continued from page 19.
NOTES 1. I am deeply indebted to my colleagues for their assistance on this topic. Dr. Steven Moore discussed the essay when it was in its very early stages and provided critical feedback to the basic structure and thesis. Dr. Mirka Beneš, always a positive force of criticism, lent advice on content, organization, and source materials. Dr. Allan Shearer—whose current research and seminars (which reference Thomas Whately’s work on gardens and Shakespeare) have focused on defining a theoretical framework for landscape architecture’s concerns with performance—provided, as always, valuable insight into how I could discuss representation/symbolism and process/performance as “appearance” and “action,” respectively. 2. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 20 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Accessed via http://www.oed.com/. See poetic, adj. 3. Ibid. See 1b. poetics, n. and poiesis, n. To note, I use the broad definition of construction to reference the putting together of ideas and/or materials. 4. Oxford English Dictionary, poetics, n. 1b. 5. Aristotle. Poetics. Accessed via http://www.gutenberg.org/ files/1974/1974-h/1974-h.htm. 6. For a discussion of Aristotle’s general philosophical framework, see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/. For a useful guide to understanding Poetics, see also http://www.english.hawaii.edu/ criticalink/aristotle/index.html. 7. “Technology as a scientific capacity to produce,” http://www. creatingtechnology.org/eng/techne.htm. 8. David Coffin. Gardens and Gardening in Papal Rome (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991). Examples of gardens from antiquity had simply not survived intact. Unlike architecture, which could reference (if not physically experience) remnants of buildings in various stages of completeness, garden design had only written descriptions of landscapes for use as models or precedents. 9. Terry Comito, The Idea of the Garden in the Renaissance (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1978). 10. Elisabeth MacDougall, “Ars hortulorum: Sixteenth Century Garden Iconography and Literary Theory in Italy,” in The Italian Garden, ed. David Coffin (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1972). 11. Ibid. Each of the elements (grove, grotto, statue) imitated various literary themes and were intended to evoke different moods (fear, isolation, pleasure, etc). MacDougall further notes that given limited accounts and descriptions of these garden, not all of a garden’s allusions or intended readings can be discerned. 12. Given the essay’s brevity, and the extensiveness of poetic allusion contained within Italian gardens of this time period, only a few examples will be briefly noted. For further reading, Coffin’s and MacDougall’s work on this topic is both seminal and comprehensive. Both describe in great detail several Roman villas and their iconographic content. Equally important, both discuss this technique for designing and detailing gardens with respect to larger cultural practices in literary theory, art, and aesthetics prevalent at that time. 13. Coffin, 87-91. 14. MacDougall, 55. 15. Coffin, 93-95.
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16. Coffin, 103-125. 17. John Dixon Hunt. “Emblem and Expressionism in the Eighteenth-Century Landscape Garden,” Eighteenth-Century Studies, 4, no. 3 (spring 1971): 294-317. Hunt references annotations made by Walpole to William Mason’s Satirical Poems: The quote is as follows: “Poetry, Painting, and Gardening, or the Science of Landscape, will forever by men of taste be deemed Three Sisters, or the Three New Graces who dress and adorn nature.” 18. Marion Harney. “Pope and Prior Park: a study in landscape and literature,” Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscape: An International Quarterly 27, no. 3 (2007): 183-196. Harney’s essay discusses Pope’s general garden theories, specifically his insistence that the garden be derived from site and place (genius loci); and create “poetic landscapes based on antiquity and allusion.” In addition, Harney traces the development of Prior Park with respect to Pope’s garden ideals, precedents he referenced, and the design’s organization of path, planting, and iconography. Her essay proves useful for articulating how poetics provided a set of techniques for garden making in the English landscape during the eighteenth century. 19. Hunt 299-301. See also Stephen Bending’s “Re-reading the Eighteenth-Century English Landscape Garden,” in Huntington Library Quarterly, 55, no. 3 (summer 1992): 379-399. 20. For further reading on these questions see Robert Neal’s “Adorning nature: emblematic sculpture in the early eighteenthcentury garden,” Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes: An International Quarterly, 29, no. 1-2 (2009): 44-56; and Stephen Bending’s “Re-reading the Eighteenth-Century English Landscape Garden,” in Huntington Library Quarterly, 55, no. 3 (summer 1992): 379-399. Both essays probe the matter of how eighteenth century landscape gardens were read or misread. Referencing Thomas Whately’s terms for “emblematic” and “expressive” inferences within the garden, the essays examine the time period’s garden theories and the use of literary techniques in the making of the garden; if not the degree to which one had to understand the allusions in order to have meaningful experiences in the gardens. See also John Dixon Hunt’s essay “Emblem and Expressionism in the Eighteenth-Century Landscape Garden,” given how Neal and Bending each discuss Hunt’s conclusions in their respective essays. 21. Thomas Whately. Observations on Modern Gardening, fourth edition (London: T. Payne and Son, 1777). Accessed from John Adams Library via: http://ia700307.us.archive.org/18/items/ observationsonmo00what/observationsonmo00what.pdf. See page 165 of pdf (150-151 of original text). Discussions with Dr. Allan Shearer provided an introduction to Whately’s emblematic and expressive terms. See endnote 20 for additional reading on this topic. 22. James Corner. “Ecology and Landscape as Agents of Creativity,” in Ecological Design and Planning, eds. George F. Thompson and Frederick R. Steiner (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1993). Corner’s early essay helped set the stage for an understanding of landscape predicated on process, adaptation, and agency. For additional reading on this topic, see Corner’s edited collection, Recovering Landscape (1999); Julia Czerniak’s and George Hargreaves’ edited collection, Large Parks (2007); and Charles Waldheim’s edited collection, The Landscape Urbanism Reader (2006).