Literary Gardens course 2024
Literary Gardens with Karina Jakubowicz
We will study gardens in some brilliant novels, short stories and poetry published between 1865 and 1922, from Alice in Wonderland to The Waste Land. All these remarkable works are fascinated with gardens (or possibly anti-gardens, in the case of The Waste Land). Why are gardens important – how are they represented, and what do they mean across these works?
Gardens are quite similar to books. Both are carefully crafted pieces of art that are built around physical or narrative ‘plots’. Although they each seem to offer a retreat from the world at large, they are often commentaries on that world, and are always a direct result of it. They are ultimately products of their cultural, environmental, and artistic contexts, and when 'read' successfully they offer powerful ways of analysing and engaging with our everyday lives.
This course explores the affinity between texts and gardens, charting a course from the mid-Victorian period to the early twentieth century. We will ask what the garden means across these decades and how it functions in response to shifts in gender dynamics, modern aesthetics, war, and the environment. The course will also explore the significant changes in garden design and horticulture during this period, providing an insight into one of the most exciting phases in the history of gardening.
In her lectures, Karina will look closely at each work and she will also explore the historical context, including women gardeners of the early twentieth century, the history of Kew Gardens, and much more.
Fridays, weekly at 2.00-4.00 pm British Summer Time, 10 May to 14 June 2024
Sundays, weekly, at 6.00-8.00 pm British Summer Time, 12 May to 16 June 2024.
This is a 6-week course, with a live online lecture and seminar each week. The lectures are recorded so that participants can listen again during the course if they wish. The seminars are not recorded.
Course fee
£300 full price (includes 20% VAT)
£270 students and CAMcard holders (includes 20% VAT)
Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland
HD (Hilda Doolittle)
Lecture list
Lecture 1. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872). Friday 10 May / Sun. 12 May 2023.
Lecture 2. Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and her German Garden (1898).
Lecture 3. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911).
Lecture 4. Katherine Mansfield short stories, including ‘The Garden Party’ (1922) in Mansfield, Collected Stories or online from the KM Society website.
Lecture 5. Virginia Woolf, ‘Kew Gardens’ (short story, 1919); further reading ‘A Sketch of the Past’ (essay, in Woolf, Moments of Being).
Lecture 6. H.D. Sea Garden (1916) and T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922), esp. ‘Burial of the Dead’. You can find The Waste Land in print in Eliot’s Collected Poems, or online at Poetry Foundation. Several HD poems can be found online at Poetry Foundation. Karina will give details of Sea Garden reading early in the course.
Links
• Robert Douglas-Fairhurst article on Alice in Wonderland, Guardian, 20 March 2015
• Poetry Foundation on HD’s poetry
• Poetry Foundation on T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land
• Katherine Mansfield Society, texts of KM’s short stories
• Elizabeth von Arnim Society, information on EvA
• Garden Museum, London website
• Kew Gardens, London website
• Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain website
• National Gardens Scheme: some literary gardens to visit
We usually recommend pages on the British Library website, which has wonderful articles on many writers. After being hacked, much of it is unavailable at present, but it will be back.
Optional further reading
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Story of Alice (2015)
Caroline Zoob, Virginia Woolf’s Garden (2013)
If you cannot attend a course you have booked
Please note that, because places are limited, we cannot usually give refunds if you cannot attend a course. But if you contact us in advance, we may be able transfer your booking to a different course.
Zoom link
We will send you a zoom link for the course by email at least 24 hours before the first lecture. If it does not arrive, please let us know by email in good time, at least an hour before the session, so we can re-send.
Comment from participant on a previous course
‘It was such a pleasure to take Bloomsbury: Art and Politics with Karina Jakubowicz. Her lectures are scholarly and engaging, and whether one is discovering or re-discovering the texts, they come more fully to life as Dr Jakubowicz analyses them through the lens of the politics, history, social mores and art of the time. The class has an in-person feel because the number of students is kept small, and also allowed us to actively participate in post-lecture discussions which were a highlight. I look forward to my next class!’
Lesley Zafran, Florida, US
Sea Rose
BY H.D.
Rose, harsh rose,
marred and with stint of petals,
meagre flower, thin,
sparse of leaf,
more precious
than a wet rose
single on a stem—
you are caught in the drift.
Stunted, with small leaf,
you are flung on the sand,
you are lifted
in the crisp sand
that drives in the wind.
Can the spice-rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?
Banner image: Kew Gardens lily pond. Photo by Rosa Tate
Pink flower image left: Tomojo Uji, Unsplash