The Picturesque?

 It was suggested by Rob Kronenburg of Liverpool University to look at the GIS mapping of the Literary Lakes as researched by Lancaster University.  More about this technique later.


Whilst on this website the following passage stood out which contains many points of interest, specifically relating to the thoughts we had on the Mediated Landscape and the influence of the Picturesque:

Picturesque means 'like a picture' and, as Jonathan Bate notes in 'The Song of the Earth', 'the early tourists went armed with guidebook, sketchpad, Claude glass and sometimes camera obscura' (p. 127). The guidebook directed the tourist to the most Picturesque prospects, usually located on the shores of the larger lakes, and once there he would turn his back on the landscape, look at it reflected in the Claude Glass, and make a sketch or write a description. This practice may seem strange and, indeed, it was lampooned at the time in the satirical cartoon 'Dr Syntax in Search of the Picturesque'. Yet, as Bate suggests, modern tourists have their own equivalent: 'When we see an especially fine view, we take a photograph of it. If we stop and think about the procedure, this is a rather strange thing to do' (p. 127).

'The Song of the Earth' may warrant further research, however the most immediately interesting section here was the old cartoon 'Dr Syntax', an image from this is shown below:

Image from
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/bwwc/images/drsyntax_bluestocking_fullsize.jpg

A quick Google search for Dr Syntax images will bring up hundreds of entries, and the three Dr Syntax works are available in one book on Google books.

The following information is from Gavin's Adventures on the Mystical Island of Britain:

It seems that Doctor Syntax was the fictitious schoolmaster hero of three very popular books between 1812 and 1821. The famous caricaturist and water-colour painter Thomas Rowlandson painted one or two pictures each month showing the Doctor in various humorous scrapes (falling into water, disputing his bill with an inn keeper, meeting prospective wives, etc) and then William Combe wrote a continuous story in verse along the theme of the pictures. Combes did not know the subject of the pictures until he received them.

There are even several pubs around the UK named after Dr Synatx, as well as the most Westerly point in the UK being called Dr Syntax's Head!


This kind of literary connection, beyond the obvious Wordsworth connotations seems immensely interesting for the study of the areas around the Lakes.