Chemins de fer et vision des paysages anglais

Abstract

When railways were introduced in England, they not only changed the face of the country, but also the ways it was perceived. A great number of contemporaries disliked the new perception of the landscapes offered by the experience of railway journeys, which seemed indeed to shatter the principles of this vision as they were established by picturesque and romantic theories and practices. Railways were thus blamed for offering fragmented, monotonous, whirling landscapes, and for creating a gap between the observer and the object of its admiration. Hence the criticism made by the fiercest opponents of railway travel, who denounced its destruction of a real knowledge of the country by its inhabitants, thus damaging a particular definition of English national identity.