By Olivia Byrne, 2nd year Geography Student at Newnham College.
With many craving open spaces and countryside escapes this summer, we have seen that National Parks and beauty spots such as Dorset and the Lake District have attracted a large number of visitors. However, literary figures have attracted people to these parts of the UK for centuries, with many readers being attracted to the evocation of rural life and the bucolic landscapes they depict. The natural beauty of the physical landscapes of these parts of the UK have been represented and romanticised by authors such as Hardy and Wordsworth, attracting readers to visit in an attempt to experience the rural idyll for themselves and escape from busy urban life, ever since the Industrial Revolution.
I was fortunate enough to visit Dorset this summer, witnessing first-hand the picturesque landscape that provided inspiration for much of Thomas Hardy’s work. Hardy’s novels and poetry are firmly rooted in the Dorset countryside, (or ‘Wessex’ as he coined it), and the romanticisation of the rural landscapes where he grew up is a salient feature of his work. Since he was surrounded by beautiful rolling countryside, meadows, and long shingle beaches you can understand how this area inspired Hardy’s ‘partly real, partly dream’ descriptions of Dorset which still resonate with visitors today (since this area has remained largely unchanged since Hardy’s time).
Hardy (1840 – 1928) was born and grew up in a traditional thatched cottage surrounded by ancient woodland in the idyllic hamlet of Higher Bockhampton, two miles east of Dorchester. He lived here until he was 34, and it was within this cottage that he wrote much of his early poetry and several of his famous novels including Under the Greenwood Tree and Far from the Madding Crowd. His home has been maintained by the National Trust since 1948, attracting thousands of literary enthusiasts from around the world each year to traverse the landscape of his childhood, and stand in the very room where these novels were written. Since Hardy has such a strong association with the natural and cultural heritage of the local area (National Trust, 2020), visiting the author’s home allows readers not only to appreciate the landscape and the ‘afternoons of drowsy calm’ (Afternoon Service at Mellstock) Hardy described, but also gain a deeper understanding of the author behind the naturalistic prose (Keating & Hickey, 2007). Despite the fact that Hardy’s cottage was closed to the public this year, the exterior of the cottage with wildflowers that ‘climb on the walls’ (Domicilium) and the surrounding rural area seem to transport you to a bygone era, providing a window into 19th century rural life.
Whilst we have all had to find a new appreciation for our local area this year, Hardy’s rearticulation of his local geography has almost mythologised the landscape of the Dorset countryside, just as Wordsworth’s celebrated descriptions of the Lake District have left a lasting legacy on the area, and how the Pennine Hills between West Yorkshire and East Lancashire have been dubbed ‘Brontë country’. The fact that these rural landscapes have inspired authors for generations highlights how natural and imagined landscapes can intertwine, and this year, possibly more than ever, has highlighted the importance of preserving these physical landscapes not only for their natural beauty and wildlife, but also for their literary and cultural significance.
Photo Credits: Olivia Byrne and Chloe Byrne
DISCLAIMER: THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OR OPINIONS OF COMPASS MAGAZINE AS A WHOLE OR THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY.