‘To Knot or Not To’: landscape gardening in Paradise Lost and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia.

‘A Gourd of Grape-Juice...’: gardening as moral behaviour – John Milton, George Herbert and Ruth Pitter.

 

EXTRACT:

... So what tasks are appropriate in Paradise? Pure intellectual activity worries Milton because speculation needs to be confined within bounds, and even the angels are unsure what limits have been assigned to humanity. Practical jobs are healthier, but are also restricted by the user-friendliness of the environment which is liable to render them redundant. Milton took his cue from Genesis, which states that Adam was put in the garden to ‘dress’ it.... 

 

 

FULL CONTENTS OF WOOL-GATHERER 2:

‘A Beginning, a Middle and a Choice of Endings’: Malcolm Bradbury, Charlotte Bronte and Tom Stoppard play narrative games with their readers.

‘To Knot or Not To’: landscape gardening in Paradise Lost and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia.

‘A Gourd of Grape-Juice...’: gardening as moral behaviour – John Milton, George Herbert and Ruth Pitter.

‘Harping On’: cultural conflicts in Wales – R.S. Thomas and G.M. Hopkins.

‘Orcus Porcus and Good Times in Keighley’: the eccentric 17th century picaresque poem of Richard Brathwait.

‘Young Men Hanging Around’:  unrequited love in Ovid, Theocritus and Emile Gaboriau.

‘Cut the Philosophy, Mister Spock...’: the dangers of travel, and the loss of innocence it entails – the Roman lyric poets.

‘The Greatest Sophist...’: the pronouncements of Samuel Johnson.

‘Fleecing the World’: John Dyer’s The Fleece – a poetic epic of the wool trade.

‘Country-lover Seeks Peasants for Rustic Fun’: rural jollity not altogether what it seems? – Milton, Robert Bloomfield, George Crabbe.

‘Thorfinn Skullsplitter woz ere’: runes in Viking graffiti and a didactic alphabet poem.

‘Now all we need is a Certainty for the 3.30 at Haydock Park’: magic horses in Milton, Chaucer and Orcadian and Breton mythology.



To purchase WOOL-GATHERER 2, please send a cheque for £2.50 (UK destinations – for overseas postage rates please enquire) to:

D.H. Parry
Bryniau
Uwchmynydd
Pwllheli
Gwynedd LL53 8BY

Visit the homepage to see contents of other WOOL-GATHERERS and miscellaneous pamphlets.