After the rural idyll: representations of the British countryside as a non-idyllic environment

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article explores a somewhat overlooked tradition of non-idyllic representations of the British countryside, particularly characteristic of the post-Second World War period. It considers the collective significance of non-idyllic representations and discusses what they reveal about the place of the rural within contemporary British culture. The article takes a broad survey approach, highlighting the representation of rural landscapes, rural communities and rural life, and the rural economy and rural labour, across a range of non-idyllic representations. It argues that it is no longer plausible to sustain the argument that the overwhelming imagination of British rural space is idyllic. These non-idyllic representations afford spaces to explore the imprints of modernity and globalisation on the British countryside, while the special place of the rural within British national identity now seems less secure.