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Locus amoenus ( Latin for "pleasant place") is a literary topos involving an idealized place of safety or comfort. A locus amoenus is usually a beautiful, shady lawn or open woodland, or a group of idyllic islands, sometimes with connotations of Eden or Elysium. [1]
Ernst Robert Curtius wrote the concept's definitive formulation in his European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (1953). [2]
Characteristics
A locus amoenus will have three basic elements: trees, grass, and water. Often, the garden will be in a remote place and function as a landscape of the mind. It can also be used to highlight the differences between urban and rural life or be a place of refuge from the processes of time and mortality.
In some works, such gardens also have overtones of the regenerative powers of human sexuality [3] marked out by flowers, springtime, and goddesses of love and fertility. [4]
History
Classical
The literary use of this type of setting goes back, in Western literature at least, to Homer, [5] and it became a staple of the pastoral works of poets such as Theocritus and Virgil. Horace ( Ars Poetica, 17) and the commentators on Virgil, such as Servius, recognize that descriptions of loci amoeni have become a rhetorical commonplace. Arcadia, a rugged region of Greece, was frequently depicted as a locus amoenus whose inhabitants lived in harmony with nature; in time, this usage evolved to describe a broader utopian vision based around simple, pastoral living.
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the function of the locus amoenus is inverted, to form the "locus terribilis". Instead of offering a respite from dangers, it is itself usually the scene of violent encounters. [6]
Medieval
The Middle Ages merged the classical locus amoenus with biblical imagery, as from the Song of Songs. [7]
Matthew of Vendôme provided multiple accounts of how to describe the locus amoenus, [8] while Dante drew on the commonplace for his description of the Earthly Paradise: "Here spring is endless, here all fruits are." [9]
Renaissance
The locus amoenus was a popular theme in the works of such Renaissance figures as Ariosto and Tasso. [10]
Shakespeare made good use of the locus amoenus in his long poem Venus and Adonis. [11] The trope also fed into his construction, in many plays, of what Northrop Frye has called the Shakespearean "green world" – a space that lies outside of city limits, a liminal space where erotic passions can be freely explored, away from civilization and the social order – such as the Forest of Arden in As You Like It. [12] A mysterious and dark, feminine place, as opposed to the rigid masculine civil structure, the green world can also be found featured in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Titus Andronicus.[ citation needed]
Modern
In the 20th century the locus amoenus appears in the work of T. S. Eliot, as in the Rose Garden of Burnt Norton [13] and in J. R. R. Tolkien's Shire [14] and Lothlórien. [15]
Sinister doubles
The split-off obverse of the locus amoenus is the apparently delectable but in fact treacherous garden, often linked to a malign sexuality, as in Circe's palace or the Bower of Bliss in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene. [16]
See also
References
- ^ J. B. Russell, A History of Heaven (1998) p. 21
- ^ E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (1953) p. 183-202
- ^ For more information, see Evett, David. "Paradice's Only Map": The "Topos" of the "Locus Amoenus" and the Structure of Marvell's "Upon Appleton House." PMLA. 85.3(1970):504-513.
- ^ W. Shullenberger, Lady in the Labyrinth (2008) p. 260
- ^ J. B. Russell, A History of Heaven (1998) p. 21
- ^ John David Zuern, "Locus Amoenus"
- ^ W. Shullenberger, Lady in the Labyrinth (2008) p. 261
- ^ H. Pleij, Dreaming of Cockaigne (2013) p. 216
- ^ Dante, Purgatory (1971) p. 293
- ^ W. Shullenberger, Lady in the Labyrinth (2008) p. 260
- ^ P. Cheney, Shakespeare, National Poet-Playwright (2004) p. 102
- ^ A. Shurbanov, Shakespeare's Lyricized Drama (2010) p. 197
- ^ Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (1973) p. 321
- ^ A. Neset, Arcadian Waters and Wanton Seas (2009) p. 30
- ^ Tom Shippey, J. R. R. Tolkien (2001) p. 196-7
- ^ Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (1971) p. 149
External links
| Part of a series on |
| Utopias |
|---|
|
|
| Mythical and religious |
| Literature |
| Theory |
| Concepts |
| Practice |
|
Locus amoenus ( Latin for "pleasant place") is a literary topos involving an idealized place of safety or comfort. A locus amoenus is usually a beautiful, shady lawn or open woodland, or a group of idyllic islands, sometimes with connotations of Eden or Elysium. [1]
Ernst Robert Curtius wrote the concept's definitive formulation in his European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (1953). [2]
Characteristics
A locus amoenus will have three basic elements: trees, grass, and water. Often, the garden will be in a remote place and function as a landscape of the mind. It can also be used to highlight the differences between urban and rural life or be a place of refuge from the processes of time and mortality.
In some works, such gardens also have overtones of the regenerative powers of human sexuality [3] marked out by flowers, springtime, and goddesses of love and fertility. [4]
History
Classical
The literary use of this type of setting goes back, in Western literature at least, to Homer, [5] and it became a staple of the pastoral works of poets such as Theocritus and Virgil. Horace ( Ars Poetica, 17) and the commentators on Virgil, such as Servius, recognize that descriptions of loci amoeni have become a rhetorical commonplace. Arcadia, a rugged region of Greece, was frequently depicted as a locus amoenus whose inhabitants lived in harmony with nature; in time, this usage evolved to describe a broader utopian vision based around simple, pastoral living.
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the function of the locus amoenus is inverted, to form the "locus terribilis". Instead of offering a respite from dangers, it is itself usually the scene of violent encounters. [6]
Medieval
The Middle Ages merged the classical locus amoenus with biblical imagery, as from the Song of Songs. [7]
Matthew of Vendôme provided multiple accounts of how to describe the locus amoenus, [8] while Dante drew on the commonplace for his description of the Earthly Paradise: "Here spring is endless, here all fruits are." [9]
Renaissance
The locus amoenus was a popular theme in the works of such Renaissance figures as Ariosto and Tasso. [10]
Shakespeare made good use of the locus amoenus in his long poem Venus and Adonis. [11] The trope also fed into his construction, in many plays, of what Northrop Frye has called the Shakespearean "green world" – a space that lies outside of city limits, a liminal space where erotic passions can be freely explored, away from civilization and the social order – such as the Forest of Arden in As You Like It. [12] A mysterious and dark, feminine place, as opposed to the rigid masculine civil structure, the green world can also be found featured in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Titus Andronicus.[ citation needed]
Modern
In the 20th century the locus amoenus appears in the work of T. S. Eliot, as in the Rose Garden of Burnt Norton [13] and in J. R. R. Tolkien's Shire [14] and Lothlórien. [15]
Sinister doubles
The split-off obverse of the locus amoenus is the apparently delectable but in fact treacherous garden, often linked to a malign sexuality, as in Circe's palace or the Bower of Bliss in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene. [16]
See also
References
- ^ J. B. Russell, A History of Heaven (1998) p. 21
- ^ E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (1953) p. 183-202
- ^ For more information, see Evett, David. "Paradice's Only Map": The "Topos" of the "Locus Amoenus" and the Structure of Marvell's "Upon Appleton House." PMLA. 85.3(1970):504-513.
- ^ W. Shullenberger, Lady in the Labyrinth (2008) p. 260
- ^ J. B. Russell, A History of Heaven (1998) p. 21
- ^ John David Zuern, "Locus Amoenus"
- ^ W. Shullenberger, Lady in the Labyrinth (2008) p. 261
- ^ H. Pleij, Dreaming of Cockaigne (2013) p. 216
- ^ Dante, Purgatory (1971) p. 293
- ^ W. Shullenberger, Lady in the Labyrinth (2008) p. 260
- ^ P. Cheney, Shakespeare, National Poet-Playwright (2004) p. 102
- ^ A. Shurbanov, Shakespeare's Lyricized Drama (2010) p. 197
- ^ Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (1973) p. 321
- ^ A. Neset, Arcadian Waters and Wanton Seas (2009) p. 30
- ^ Tom Shippey, J. R. R. Tolkien (2001) p. 196-7
- ^ Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (1971) p. 149