ABSTRACT
The dualism country/city is not a new one: it has a lengthy history dating back at least as far as the Greek Georgic poets. Within this pastoral poetry, initiated by Theocritus in the third century BC, it is evident that the view of the countryside evoked tends to be from the perspective of the town or court and often has little connection with the rural ‘reality’. In many instances, the country is referred to as the innocent, unpolluted and uncorrupted, while the city is seen as the antithesis to this. The dichotomy is often seen particularly from the point of view of the large-city dweller, with the country constructed as an imaginary landscape, a place of refuge and escape from the demands of city life. As a consequence, the evocations of the country have often been romanticised, to such an extent that rural inhabitants might have difficulty recognising the representation of the landscape in which they have lived and worked.
