Dramatic Theory and Eighteenth-Century Gardens

Abstract

The formal or French garden and the English or landscape garden coexisted in England after 1720 and in France after 1750. Even though Le Nôtre belonged to the epoch of Louis XIV, his disciples continued to work in the same style throughout the eighteenth century. Moreover, the gardens of Versailles, his masterpiece, were constantly rearranged under Louis XV so that we can almost consider them an eighteenth-century product. In the second half of the century the English garden exerted its attraction on the French, with Rousseau's Elysée its most important literary example. None the less, neither style fully replaced or negated the other. Many landscape gardens had a portion done in the strict formal style while Versailles itself incorporated the Hameau, done in the English manner. As Delille's poem suggests, what lies at the base of this change in garden designs is a new perception, a new taste, and consequently a new form. Formal and landscape gardens were designed and planted, I should like to argue, according to the same inspiration as literature and other arts: gardens responded to the same needs and reflected the same preoccupations as literature did. Furthermore, beyond the vague generalities like the 'sentimental English garden' or the 'rational French garden' there are specific details and techniques which connect each of these styles to the different genres we find in eighteenth-century theatre. I am not claiming any direct influence or conscious inspiration of one by the other; rather I am suggesting that parallel affinities of style, technique, and taste exist at the deepest levels of both eighteenth-century gardens and theatre.