The World Is A Stage
Unit: Cultural Idenities, Texts 212 - Implications of Modernity
Reading Notes for Teaching Week 5 (250 word limit)
Reading Notes for Teaching Week 5 (250 word limit)
This article argues that gardens and landscaping play an important part in the way we view the natural world. Cicero outlines three natures, although he does not specify what the first nature is. From his definitions of the second and third natures (an altered nature fit for human survival through the construction of roads and buildings & the construction of gardens and landscaping) we must understand that there must exist a first nature which is implied to be a “primal nature,” or the land untouched by humans. Threatening aspects of nature (such as mountains, sea, etc) are removed to the “sublime” where they can be identified artistically (“grandeur of mountains) – so that primal nature moves into the definitions of the second nature and is thus culturally managed. Gardens make the physical world pleasurable and also determine the “current” culture's way of seeing nature. The connection to theatres encompasses the idea that the world is a stage and that all are performers in a play. Hence gardens began to be constructed in the same way that theatres were – not only stages but areas from which to view the “performance.” Such garden constructions also strengthen notions of space as a form of power, as the owner may force his visitors to partake in the play through the composition of their garden. He could also choose who observed who through the garden arrangement, which favoured a particular space as the proper viewing position.
Readings
Hunt, John Dixon. Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History of Landscape Architechture. The MIT Press: Masachussets, 1992. 3-16. 49-73.
Readings
Hunt, John Dixon. Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History of Landscape Architechture. The MIT Press: Masachussets, 1992. 3-16. 49-73.
posted by Daebereth at 1:49 am
2 Comments:
To a Druid there is no such thing as a threatening nature. The terrifying nature of mountains is one and the same as their granduer. Can one really claim to see such majesty in an entity that does not also command such power? If we were to call a snail majestic; a snail of granduer, would it not also feel wrong from the view of society? How can a snail portray majesty or granduer without commanding some higher echelon of respect from the viewer. It is the towering nature of mountains that command this respect; the knowlege that one false step could destroy a mere "Human" crawling upon its back.
As such, one must learn to understand that these labels placed unto concepts of nature are not a part of some cultural dichotemy. Rather, these labels are the same side of this cultural coin.
For the world to be a stage, one must also ask who the audience is. If our 'garden' is to be a tool of forcing others to act by our script, then for what entity do we make this performance visible? The notion that it is the masses as a whole is ludicrous, for if the whole world is the stage, then surely all that it encompasses must be actors. To appreciate this play we could argue that the audience must be sentient, and thus nature, whom we so readily personify as shown above, cannot qualify. Thus one comes to the concept of spirituality or religion. One may find themselves argueing that it is an omniscient force that regards our act. If so, then should this omniscient force be allowed to partake in its proceedings? Does this forbid our audience, already omniscient, from also being omnipotent? Or is this world really the stage of some cheap melodrama, a pantomime with audience participation that surely only points out the obvious, not truly changing the course of the script...
My goodness, you always succeed in making me feel so incredibly stupid.
But in your point lies the difference between Druids and mere human commoners (I say human here, because we all know that Elves are far more atuned to nature)
There are reasons why the commoners always end up dying in order to maintain my alignment title.
Post a Comment
<< Home