The Mid‐Eighteenth‐Century Georgic and Agricultural Improvement
During the eighteenth century the didactic precepts of Virgil's Georgics were read as practical guidance by an emerging class of professional farmers, and a set of original vernacular georgics were written on agricultural improvement. Examining Smart's The Hop‐Garden, Dodsley's Agricu...
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| Format: | Journal article |
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Wiley
2013
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| _version_ | 1797081228520718336 |
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| author | Bucknell, C |
| author_facet | Bucknell, C |
| author_sort | Bucknell, C |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | During the eighteenth century the didactic precepts of Virgil's Georgics were read as practical guidance by an emerging class of professional farmers, and a set of original vernacular georgics were written on agricultural improvement. Examining Smart's The Hop‐Garden, Dodsley's Agriculture, Dyer's The Fleece and Jago's Edge‐Hill, I argue that they offer a confident, progressive and scientific approach to land cultivation, revising the inherited attitudes of Virgilian georgic. I suggest, though, that this poetics of improvement provides one reason for the decline of the georgic didactic tradition, as it becomes unable to offer comprehensive instruction on a specialised field of knowledge. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T01:11:37Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:8d327176-4d1e-4dfa-b092-3e6521ff83f4 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T01:11:37Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:8d327176-4d1e-4dfa-b092-3e6521ff83f42022-03-26T22:49:45ZThe Mid‐Eighteenth‐Century Georgic and Agricultural ImprovementJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:8d327176-4d1e-4dfa-b092-3e6521ff83f4Symplectic Elements at OxfordWiley2013Bucknell, CDuring the eighteenth century the didactic precepts of Virgil's Georgics were read as practical guidance by an emerging class of professional farmers, and a set of original vernacular georgics were written on agricultural improvement. Examining Smart's The Hop‐Garden, Dodsley's Agriculture, Dyer's The Fleece and Jago's Edge‐Hill, I argue that they offer a confident, progressive and scientific approach to land cultivation, revising the inherited attitudes of Virgilian georgic. I suggest, though, that this poetics of improvement provides one reason for the decline of the georgic didactic tradition, as it becomes unable to offer comprehensive instruction on a specialised field of knowledge. |
| spellingShingle | Bucknell, C The Mid‐Eighteenth‐Century Georgic and Agricultural Improvement |
| title | The Mid‐Eighteenth‐Century Georgic and Agricultural Improvement |
| title_full | The Mid‐Eighteenth‐Century Georgic and Agricultural Improvement |
| title_fullStr | The Mid‐Eighteenth‐Century Georgic and Agricultural Improvement |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Mid‐Eighteenth‐Century Georgic and Agricultural Improvement |
| title_short | The Mid‐Eighteenth‐Century Georgic and Agricultural Improvement |
| title_sort | mid eighteenth century georgic and agricultural improvement |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT bucknellc themideighteenthcenturygeorgicandagriculturalimprovement AT bucknellc mideighteenthcenturygeorgicandagriculturalimprovement |