Comparative Literature 274 - GARDEN: PARADISE & BATTLEFIELD

Ever since Genesis, the garden has been depicted not only as a paradise, a refuge and a women’s place, but also as a jungle that challenges definitions of the self and of that self’s place in the world. How have shared notions about the relation of gardens to their inhabitants changed from one culture and historical period to another? Some attention to the theory and history of landscape gardening. Texts by Mme. de Lafayette, Goethe, Austen, Balzac, Zola, Chekhov, Colette, D.H. Lawrence and Alice Walker.