In The Garden Jonathan Bate leads us through 4,000 years of ‘green thought’, observing the interplay between literature, art and horticulture. Bate has long refused to be fenced in. His academic and biographical work ranges from Shakespeare to Wordsworth, John Clare, John Keats, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ted Hughes. He is also an editor, poet, playwright and novelist. The Garden is the book he has waited a lifetime to write. It is both scholarly and relaxed, ambitious and kindly, bringing complicated ideas and feelings down to earth and grounding us in the humble human joy of real and imagined gardens. 

The mapping of language on to gardens is a major theme from the start. Bate begins by rejecting the Oxford English Dictionary’s cautious definition of a garden: ‘A piece of ground, usually enclosed, where flowers, fruit or vegetables are cultivated.’ He favours instead Samuel Johnson’s dictionary definition of 1755: ‘A piece of ground enclosed, and cultivated with extraordinary care, planted with herbs, or fruits for food, or laid out for pleasure.’ The care and the pleasure are equally important to Bate. He takes a liberal and inclusive view, expanding Johnson’s definition further to include botanical gardens, garden cities, royal and aristocratic parks and allotments. 

After visiting Italy in the early 18th century, William Kent brought back a vision of the Roman campagna

After visiting Italy in the early 18th century, William Kent brought back a vision of the Roman campagna

A chapter entitled ‘Arcadia Revisited’ opens with a quotation from Tom Stoppard’s play:

English landscape was invented by gardeners imitating foreign painters who were evoking classical authors. The whole thing was brought home in the luggage from the grand tour. Here, look – Capability Brown doing Claude, who was doing Virgil. Arcadia!

English landscape was invented by gardeners imitating foreign painters who were evoking classical authors. The whole thing was brought home in the luggage from the grand tour. Here, look – Capability Brown doing Claude, who was doing Virgil. Arcadia!

Bate highlights the role of William Kent, the son of a coach painter from Yorkshire, in bringing back to England a vision of the Roman campagna – rolling hills, temples, shepherds and shepherdesses – after studying the painted landscapes of Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin in Vicenza........

© The Spectator