Book contents
- A History of English Georgic Writing
- A History of English Georgic Writing
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- A Note on National Designations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Turnings
- Chapter 1 Hesiod, Virgil and the Ambitions of Georgic
- Chapter 2 Turning, Flying
- Chapter 3 Farm Diaries, 1770–1990
- Chapter 4 Twentieth-Century Georgic and Agricultural Technology
- Part II Times
- Part III Territories
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 3 - Farm Diaries, 1770–1990
from Part I - Turnings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2022
- A History of English Georgic Writing
- A History of English Georgic Writing
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- A Note on National Designations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Turnings
- Chapter 1 Hesiod, Virgil and the Ambitions of Georgic
- Chapter 2 Turning, Flying
- Chapter 3 Farm Diaries, 1770–1990
- Chapter 4 Twentieth-Century Georgic and Agricultural Technology
- Part II Times
- Part III Territories
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter looks at a selection of diaries written by British farmworkers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It falls into two parts. The first is a broad overview that seeks to define the farm diary and draw attention to some recurrent characteristics. The second explores how rural work and landscape, and the relationship between them, are represented in eight contrasting farm diaries. In concluding, I will consider how a survey of farm diaries affects our understanding of Georgic and Pastoral, and the adequacy or otherwise of these lenses for looking at the representation and experience of rural work and landscape. The gap between rural labour and its representation is less in farm diaries than in any other kind of georgic. Typologically, then, the farm diary could be regarded as the most basic, even foundational, form of georgic writing. What comes through most strongly in studying farm diaries is the depth of engagement of those who wrote them with land and landscape.
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- A History of English Georgic Writing , pp. 79 - 98Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022