Beschreibung:
Spanning the period from Elizabeth I's reign to Charles II's restoration, this study argues the garden is a primary site evincing a progressive narrative of change, a narrative that looks to the Edenic as obtainable ideal in court politics, economic prosperity and national identity in early modern England. The book offers an original take on gardens by including medical and colonial discourse and by considering the perspective of ecocriticism.
Introduction; The political garden: horticultural courtship; The untended garden: Shakespeare and the anti-paradise; The corporeal garden: masquerading in paradise; The colonial garden: collecting paradise; The revolutionary garden: Milton and early modern environmental thinking; Bibliography; Index.