The Culture of ‘Environmentality' and the Exceptionality of the Countryside

‘Nature’ clearly shaped nineteenth-century European society. Whether this was a uniquely ‘Victorian world’ is open to question, as debates over the scope, content and methods of Victorian studies suggest. ¹ Putting these aside, it seems clear from research on varied topics like aesthetics and the picturesque, nature and the built environment and the ‘colonial earth’ (Macarthur 2007; Taylor 2004; Bonyhady 2000) that changing perceptions of the natural world helped create the dynamism of nineteenth-century life. Emerging and mutually reinforcing patterns of visuality, building and representation contributed to an environmental context for self-understanding and cultural recognition. This was grounds for love of natural scenery and nostalgia for rural idylls, but also for early forms of environmental activism. Recent studies of large-scale demographic, ecological and cultural contexts for understanding nineteenth-century imperialism (for example, Davis 2001; Griffiths and Robin 1997; Belich 2009) provoke questions about how environ mental discourse and power helped shape the Victorian era.