IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001213306

“The Riddle of this Painful Earth”: Late Victorian Literature and Archaeology during the Great Agricultural Depression (2012)

Journal of Literature and Science
Volume: 5, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 22-37
Publication date: 2012
Language: English

Publication Date: 2012
Edition Details: Part of a special section, “Literature, Science, and the Natural World in the Long Nineteenth Century”

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

In 1888 the Reverend Monro Gibson, writing for The Sunday at Home, likened the agricultural depression of the late nineteenth century to a cloud that hung over the country: Depression, depression, depression! How sadly familiar the word has been for many years. It is not an unfamiliar word at any time, but lately it almost seems as if it had come, not to visit, but to stay. The depression in agriculture and commerce has been so long continued, that it is almost a weariness to speak of it. And though we may take a hopeful view of the outlook, with the expectation that the clouds may roll away, and the sun appear, there still remain burdens sufficient to weigh heavily on those who are thoughtful enough to vex themselves with the riddle of this painful earth. (5) An era of change and uncertainty, the agricultural depression introduced new farming methods and alternative ways of thinking about the landscape. At the same time, the rise of archaeology as a science encouraged wider recognition of the importance of the land as a preserve of past human activity. The farmland of the counties forming historical Wessex concealed archaeological evidence of Iron Age and Roman farming communities -- signifying not only the emergence of civilisation in Britain, but a tradition of working the land that had been passed down through generations to the nineteenth century. The writing of Richard Jefferies and Thomas Hardy, who were both born in Wessex counties,1 is rooted in this formative time for agriculture and archaeology; in chronicling emergent understandings of the soil both authors sought to address the riddle of this painful earth.

...More

Included in

Article McKechnie, Claire; Alder, Emily (2012) Introduction: Literature, Science, and the Natural World in the Long Nineteenth Century. Journal of Literature and Science (pp. 1-4). unapi

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB001213306

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Bevan, A.; Conolly, J.; Colledge, S.; Frederick, C.; Palmer, C.; Siddall, R.; Stellatou, A.; (2013)
The Long-Term Ecology of Agricultural Terraces and Enclosed Fields from Antikythera, Greece (/p/isis/citation/CBB001421923/)

Book Willis, Martin; (2011)
Vision, Science, and Literature, 1870--1920: Ocular Horizons (/p/isis/citation/CBB001451576/)

Article Warwick, Alexandra; (2012)
The Dreams of Archaeology (/p/isis/citation/CBB001213319/)

Article Evans, Christopher; (2005)
Captain Nemo/Lt-General Pitt Rivers and Cleopatra's Needle---A Story of Flagships (/p/isis/citation/CBB000931111/)

Article Zimmerman, Virginia; (2012)
“Time Seemed Fiction”---Archaeological Encounters in Victorian Poetry (/p/isis/citation/CBB001213318/)

Article Sorum, Eve; (2009)
“The Place on the Map”: Geography and Meter in Hardy's Elegies (/p/isis/citation/CBB001032303/)

Book Townend, Matthew; (2009)
The Vikings and Victorian Lakeland: The Norse Medievalism of W. G. Collingwood and His Contemporaries (/p/isis/citation/CBB001020343/)

Thesis Zimmerman, Virginia Lee-Alice; (2001)
The Grating Roar of Science: Victorian Revisions of Time (/p/isis/citation/CBB001562372/)

Article Morton, Timothy; (1998)
The Pulses of the Body: Romantic Vegetarianism and Its Contexts (/p/isis/citation/CBB000952598/)

Article Erdheim, Cara; (2013)
Naturalism's Dietary Discourse: From Fasting Fads to Sinclair's Social Reforms (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320896/)

Article Maria Carmela Grano; (2020)
Gualchiere, mulini idraulici e cisterne. L’uso dell’acqua e le trasformazioni del paesaggio in Basilicata (/p/isis/citation/CBB850706279/)

Chapter Fuller, Dorian Q.; (2003)
Indus and Non-Indus Agricultural Traditions: Local Developments and Crop Adoptions on the Indian Peninsula (/p/isis/citation/CBB001422470/)

Book Madella, Marco; Lancelotti, Carla; Savard, Manon; (2014)
Ancient Plants and People: Contemporary Trends in Archaeobotany (/p/isis/citation/CBB001422461/)

Article Jørgensen, Dolly; (2015)
Illuminating Ephemeral Medieval Agricultural History through Manuscript Art (/p/isis/citation/CBB001422238/)

Article Rodriguez, Veronica Perez; Anderson, Kirk C.; (2013)
Terracing in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico: Cycles of Resilience of an Ancient Land-Use Strategy (/p/isis/citation/CBB001421929/)

Article Niccolò Mazzucco; Amalia Sabanov; Ferran Antolín; Goce Naumov; Ljubo Fidanoski; Juan F. Gibaja; (2022)
The spread of agriculture in south-eastern Europe: new data from North Macedonia (/p/isis/citation/CBB850280233/)

Article White, Chantel E.; Chesson, Meredith S.; Schaub, R. Thomas; (2014)
A Recipe for Disaster: Emerging Urbanism and Unsustainable Plant Economies at Early Bronze Age Ras an-numayra, Jordan (/p/isis/citation/CBB001422007/)

Book Bowman, Alan K; Wilson, Andrew; (2013)
The Roman Agricultural Economy: Organization, Investment, and Production (/p/isis/citation/CBB001422265/)

Chapter Weber, Steven A.; (2003)
Archaeobotany at Harappa: Indications for Change (/p/isis/citation/CBB001422466/)

Chapter Madella, Marco; (2003)
Investigating Agriculture and Environment in South Asia: Present and Future Contributions from Opal Phytoliths (/p/isis/citation/CBB001422467/)