Landscape and Gender in the Novels of Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy - The Body of Nature

Sep 19, 2026

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Eithne Henson examines how physical, metaphorical, and dream landscapes in the novels of Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy express gender attitudes. The study links shifts in nineteenth-century landscape construction to eighteenth-century aesthetic theory, Ruskinian aesthetics, Darwinism, and industrial economic concerns. It analyzes reading conventions for landscape, including the gendered narrator, place-determined action and character, mood-making roles, and the pastoral as a moral marker, while comparing Englishness against internal or colonial Others. Henson interrogates the trope equating woman with nature and the effects of framing women as natural objects or male-gaze targets.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages101

Reading Time2 h 36 min

AccessFree to download

Examining Landscape and Gender

Representations of physical, metaphorical, and dream landscapes

Influence of aesthetic theory, Ruskin, and Darwinism

Conventions of reading landscape: narrator, action, mood, and pastoral morality

Englishness versus the internal or colonial Other

Trope of woman equated with nature and the male gaze

Downloaded by 105. 105. 105. 156 at 13:58 28 August 2017 LANDSCAPE AND GENDER IN THE NOVELS OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË, GEORGE ELIOT, AND THOMAS HARDY Examining a wide range of representations of physical, metaphorical, and dream landscapes in Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy, Eithne Henson explores the way in which gender attitudes are expressed, both in descriptions of landscape as the human body and in ideas of nature. Henson discusses the influence of eighteenth-century aesthetic theory, particularly on Brontë and Eliot, and argues that Ruskinian aesthetics, Darwinism, and other scientific preoccupations of an industrializing economy, changed constructions of landscape in the later nineteenth century. Henson examines the conventions of reading landscape, including the implied expectations of the reader, the question of the gendered narrator, how place defines the kind of action and characters in the novels, the importance of landscape in creating mood, the pastoral as a moral marker for readers, and the influence of changing aesthetic theory on the implied painterly models that the three authors reproduce in their work. She also considers how each writer defines the concept of Englishness against an internal or colonial Other. Alongside these concerns, Henson interrogates the ancient trope that equates woman with nature, and the effect of comparing women to natural objects or offering them as objects of the male gaze, typically to diminish or control them. Informed by close readings, Henson’s study offers an original approach to the significances of landscape in the‘realist’ nineteenth-century novel. Downloaded by 105. 105. 105. 156 at 13:58 28 August 2017 The Nineteenth Century Series General Editors’ Preface The aim of the seriesisto reflect, develop and extend the great burgeoning of interest in the nineteenth century that has been an inevitable feature of recent years, as that former epoch has come more sharply into focus as a locus for our understanding not only of the past but of the contours of our modernity. It centres primarily upon major authors and subjects within Romantic and Victorian literature. It also includes studies of other British writers and issues, where these are matters of current debate: for example, biography and autobiography, journalism, periodical literature, travel writing, book production, gender, non-canonical writing. We are dedicated principally to publishing original monographs and symposia; our policy is to embrace a broad scope in chronology, approach and range of concern, and both to recognize and cut innovatively across such parameters as those suggested by the designations ‘Romantic’ and ‘Victorian’. We welcome new ideas and theories, while valuing traditional scholarship. It is hoped that the world which predates yet so forcibly predicts and engages our own will emerge in parts, in the wider sweep, and in the lively streams of disputation and change that are so manifest an aspect of its intellectual, artistic and social landscape. Vincent Newey Joanne Shattock University of Leicester Downloaded by 105. 105. 105. 156 at 13:58 28 August 2017 Landscape and Gender in the Novels of Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy The Body of Nature EITHNE HENSON Wensley, Yorkshire, UK Downloaded by 105. 105. 105. 156 at 13:58 28 August 2017 First Published 2011 by Ashgate Publisher Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Eithne Henson 2011 Eithne Henson has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying a

FAQs

How does the book connect landscape representations to gender attitudes?

It argues that gender attitudes surface through descriptions of landscape as the human body and through ideas of nature across the three authors’ novels.

Which intellectual currents shaped later nineteenth-century landscape constructions?

The book highlights eighteenth-century aesthetic theory, Ruskinian aesthetics, Darwinism, and concerns connected to an industrializing economy.

What roles does landscape play in reading conventions within the novels?

It examines expectations of readers, the gendered narrator, how place structures action and character, and how landscape creates mood, including the pastoral as a moral marker.

Sep 19, 2026

Uploaded by Ezra