Cultural Nature in Andrew Marvell’s &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;The Mower Against Gardens&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt;

Jalal Farzaneh Dehkordi

doi:10.11648/j.ellc.20180302.11

Abstract

There has always been a dichotomy between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ in literary theory and criticism, the outcome of which is but preference of one over the other. In this study, a poem by Andrew Marvell is chosen which best exemplifies the play of these two terms which result in merging this binary opposition in a way that defining one concept is conceivable in terms of the other. In view of the fact that culture functions a basic and inevitable role in literature and considering Baroque reasoning of the seventeenth century in mind, impact of culture in Marvell’s <i>The Mower Against Gardens</i> on the basis of Terry Eagleton’s definition of culture is noticeable. In this regard, analysis of the poem embraces consideration of the speaker’s tone and consciousness as well as the poet’s viewpoint toward historical and cultural indications of the time, exposing how nature and culture affect each other without being conflicting to each other. The present paper aims to prove impact of culture with ample extracts of natural descriptions of the poem and disclose that ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ are applied interchangeably. In this study, the dominant cultural, socio-political and religious ideas and their impact on Marvel’s poem are taken into account. Application of Eagleton’s definition becomes possible through differentiation between the poet’s and the speaker’s idea toward nature and existing dialogism between the artificial and the natural in the poem.

Highlights

Considering concept of culture versus nature as explained by Terry Eagleton, and regarding Andrew Marvell’s nature poetry which regards both human nature as well as natural nature, this article tries to analyze whether concept of culture as nature is applicable to Marvell’s nature poem to the one in which there is a speaker-as-Mower
For present analysis a ‘poem’ was chosen since among different definitions existing for social concept of culture and analysis of some related parts of a poem, there remains a functional idea of culture as something very natural to human nature and society, which is best illustrated in poetry in the sense that poetry aligns directly and naturally to human nature
As the poet belongs to Baroque era, he reveals the idea of an enclosed nature in the form of a metaphorical garden in which man has made the garden square, as he says in The Mower Against Gardens: “He first enclosed within the garden’s square/ A dead and standing pool of air,”, so since nature is an emblem of culture and reveals human nature, the same artificiality existing in human’s nature exists in nature itself: “With strange perfumes he did the roses taint;/ And flowers themselves were taught to paint.” (Lines 11-12)

Summary

Introduction

Considering concept of culture versus nature as explained by Terry Eagleton, and regarding Andrew Marvell’s nature poetry which regards both human nature as well as natural nature, this article tries to analyze whether concept of culture as nature is applicable to Marvell’s nature poem to the one in which there is a speaker-as-Mower. In this sense, The Mower Against Gardens has been selected among the collection of “Mower Poems” since the subject of the poem elucidates relationship between nature and art and the claim of this article is best suited. The features that the reader examines in a poem are not on the page as the world does not come to us as a raw material, but as ‘already signifying’ for instance connotations in poems are clusters of associated meanings which are built into its language [4]

Objectives

Discussion

Conclusion