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Chapter 13 - Low Lands

Fen Georgic

from Part III - Territories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2022

Paddy Bullard
Affiliation:
University of Reading
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Summary

This chapter argues that the East Anglian Fens, a 1,500-square-mile diamond of flat, low-lying land given over largely to agriculture, are a perfect test case for thinking about georgic at the level of landscape. An ancient landscape that seems to forbid organic metaphor, the Fens can seem like perpetually un-reclaimed literary ground. Yet since Caryl Churchill’s Fen (1982) and Graham Swift’s Waterland (1983) contemporary authors have found a more involving territory there than in more conventionally literary landscapes in the Lakes, the Yorkshire Moors or the Wessex uplands. The history of the Fens places often remote and lonely agricultural lives in a setting shaped by mighty human efforts against huge natural forces, especially those of river and sea. In the fens it is easy for georgic writing to lose its human scale. Here both farmer and writer must make a reckoning with everything that the landscape has excluded.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Low Lands
  • Edited by Paddy Bullard, University of Reading
  • Book: A History of English Georgic Writing
  • Online publication: 01 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009019507.017
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  • Low Lands
  • Edited by Paddy Bullard, University of Reading
  • Book: A History of English Georgic Writing
  • Online publication: 01 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009019507.017
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Low Lands
  • Edited by Paddy Bullard, University of Reading
  • Book: A History of English Georgic Writing
  • Online publication: 01 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009019507.017
Available formats
×