Seeing the Trees for the Wood: Romantic Forests and Forestry

Professor Fiona Stafford

During Wordsworth’s lifetime, trees were widely seen as a vital resource, providing materials for everything from wheels to warships, church pews to charcoal, fruit to furniture, boundary markers to birdlime.  At the same time, writers and artists began to see trees as inspirational life-forms, bristling with stories and enriching the world with their beauty and mystery.  Trees became subjects, settings, and significant details in literature and art.  While routine tree-felling continued, the period also saw passionate laments over the loss of trees and forests.  What can Romantic responses to trees tell us today?  The lecture will explore the presence of trees in literature and culture, reflecting on the Romantic period’s impact on the long, evolving relationship between human and arboreal life on earth.

This is part of the Literary Arboretum day of free events at Wordsworth Grasmere.

Reserve your free spot for this event here.

About the speaker

Fiona Stafford is a writer, academic and broadcaster.  Her new book, Time and Tide, explores unexpected aspects of the land and seascapes of Britain and Ireland. Earlier books include The Long, Long Life of Trees; The Brief Life of Flowers; Jane Austen; Local Attachments; Reading Romantic Poetry;  and an edition of Lyrical Ballads.   She is Professor of English at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

About the project

This event is funded by the University of Derby and is affiliated with the collaborative project Romantic Trees: The Literary Arboretum, 1740-1840, led by Dr Amanda Blake Davis and Dr Anna Burton.

Image: Joseph Wright of Derby, Lake Scene (1790) oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Michael D. Coe, Yale MAH 1968 in memory of Sophie D. Coe, B2004.16.