Analysing the Boundaries of the Ancient Roman Garden - (Ancient Environments) by Victoria Austen (Paperback)

About the Book

"This book demonstrates how the Romans constructed garden boundaries specifically in order to open up or undermine the division between a number of oppositions, such as inside/outside, sacred/profane, art/nature, and real/imagined. Using case studies from across literature and material and visual culture, Victoria Austen explores the perception of individual garden sites in response to their limits, and showcases how the Romans delighted in playing with concepts of boundedness and separation. Transculturally, the garden is understood as a marked-off and cultivated space. Distinct from their surroundings, gardens are material and symbolic spaces that constitute both universal and culturally specific ways of accommodating the natural world and expressing human attitudes and values. Although we define these spaces explicitly through the notions of separation and division, in many cases we are unable to make sense of the most basic distinction between 'garden' and 'not-garden'. In response to this ambiguity, Austen interrogates the notion of the 'boundary' as an essential characteristic of the Roman garden"--

Book Synopsis

This book demonstrates how the Romans constructed garden boundaries specifically in order to open up or undermine the division between a number of oppositions, such as inside/outside, sacred/profane, art/nature, and real/imagined. Using case studies from across literature and material and visual culture, Victoria Austen explores the perception of individual garden sites in response to their limits, and showcases how the Romans delighted in playing with concepts of boundedness and separation.

Transculturally, the garden is understood as a marked-off and cultivated space. Distinct from their surroundings, gardens are material and symbolic spaces that constitute both universal and culturally specific ways of accommodating the natural world and expressing human attitudes and values. Although we define these spaces explicitly through the notions of separation and division, in many cases we are unable to make sense of the most basic distinction between 'garden' and 'not-garden'. In response to this ambiguity, Austen interrogates the notion of the 'boundary' as an essential characteristic of the Roman garden.

Review Quotes

"Austen's book will be a useful volume not only for scholars interested in gardens, but in the many other topics she touches on in her tour through the various horti of the case studies." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"[T]he book introduces new avenues to explore, and Austen has an engaging voice that blends an inventive point of view with critical acuity... Austen's work will be useful for scholars and students interested in garden spaces and theoretical approaches to that space. Intermedial approaches can be difficult to tackle, because one must master a large amount of material, and this is apparent at moments in Austen's case studies, but her book will inspire the reader to view Roman gardens with more curiosity and care." --The Classical Outlook

"Victoria Austen presents an intriguing analysis of 'the boundaries of the ancient Roman garden', in a thought-provoking study in which she brings texts into a productive dialogue with material and visual culture ... This is a stimulating book that certainly invites more work along similar lines, showing the rich layers of meaning and perspectives that can be inherent in the interstitial space of the garden and in its boundaries" --Anke Walter, University of Newcastle, UK, Greece and Rome

About the Author

Victoria Austen is Assistant Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA. She received her PhD in Classics from King's College London, UK.