The Sexual Politics of Landscape: Images of Venus in Eighteenth-Century English Poetry and Landscape Gardening

Abstract

The Sexual Politics of Landscape: Images of Venus in Eighteenth-Century English Poetry and Landscape Gardening JAMES G. TURNER Her ambition is vague and indefinite, She will neither stay in, nor come out. Ezra Pound, "Clara" On the night of June 6th, 1785, a statue of the Venus de' Medici was bro­ ken up and carted away from The Leasowes, the famous landscape garden near Birmingham, England, constructed by the poet William Shenstone (1714-63).1 Such "gothic depredations" became common there: obelisks were pushed over, urns rolled down hills, and the garden build­ ings inscribed, as Goldsmith put it, "with the characters of prophaneness, ignorance, and obscenity."2 This statue had been placed by a later owner in the very navel of Shenstone's garden, Virgil's Grove, its bashful posture by a shaded pool suggesting a nymph caught bathing. Shenstone, how­ ever, had installed it in a shrubbery close to the house, making it the last feature visitors would encounter on their tour of his garden "Paradise."3 Garden design for Shenstone was a complex process, involving not only the emulation and adaptation of neighboring gardens but the interaction of two forms of self-expression, gardening and literature. In 1759, after seeing a similar "Venus Marina" installed in a garden grotto by his friend Sherrington Davenport, he had written the following verses: 343 344 / TURNER — Semi-reducta Venus To Venus, Venus here retir'd, My sober vows I pay; Not her on Paphian plains admir'd, The bold! the pert! the gay! Not her, whose am'rous leer prevail'd To bribe the Phrygian boy; Not her, whose martial efforts fail'd To save disastrous Troy. Fresh rising from the foamy tide, She every bosom warms; While half-withdrawn she seems to hide, And half reveals, her charms. Learn hence, ye boastful sons of taste, To prize th'embowring shade: Learn hence to shun the thriftless waste Of pomp, at large display'd. Let coy reserve with cost unite To garnish wood or field; No glare obtrusive pall the sight, In aught you paint, or build. Let sweet concealment's wondrous art Your doubtful bounds invest; And while the sight reveals a part, To fancy leave the rest. Tis bashful beauty ever twines The most effectual chain; Tis she, that sovereign rule declines, That best deserves to reign.4 The statue thus belongs to the landscape garden not only as an appropri­ ate ornament — the bashful goddess screened by her wooded recess — but as an illustration of the aesthetic, moral, and socioeconomic principles the garden embodies. Shenstone next set out to improve this composite image, sending the poem to friends for revision and at the same time building a matching fea­ ture in his own garden — the Venus in the shrubbery, whose plinth was in­ scribed with a revised version of the poem. We know it from the "Descrip­ tion of The Leasowes" in Shenstone s posthumous Works (London, 1764), II, 369-71, where it is illustrated by an etching of Virgil's Grove (Fig. 1). The connection between grove and Venus, perceived in this illustration as a symbolic affinity, was thus rendered concrete by that later owner who The Sexual Politics of Landscape / 345 370 A DESCRIPTION OF •----- “ Scmi-redufta Venus.” O Venus, Venus here retir’d, My luher vows I pay : Not her on Paphian plains admir’d The bold, the peri, the gay. Not her, whofe amorous leer prevail'd To bribe the Phrygian boy ; Not her who, clad in armour fail'd^ To fave difaft’rous Troy. THE LEAS OWES. 371 And far be driven the fumptuous glare Of gold, from Britifh groves ; And far the meretricious air Of China’s vain alcoves. *Tis bafhful beauty ever twines The mod coercive chain; *Tis flic, that fov’reign rule declines. Who belt deferves to reign. Frcfti rifmg from the foamy tide, She every bofom warms ; While half withdrawn ftie feems to hide. And half reveals, her charms. Learn hence, ye boaftful foos of tafte. Who plan the rural (hade; Learn hence to fltun the vicious wafte Of pomp, at large difplay’d. Let fweet concealment’s magic art Your mazy bounds inveft ; And while the...