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RURAL LIFE IN ENGLANDby Washington IrvingTHE stranger who would form a correct opinion of the English character, must not confine his observations to the metropolis. He must go forth into the country; he must sojourn in villages and hamlets; he must visit castles, villas, farm-houses, cottages; he must wander through parks and gardens; along hedges and green lanes; he must loiter about country churches; attend wakes and fairs, and other rural festivals; and cope with the people in all their conditions, and all their habits and humors.In some countries, the large cities absorb the wealth and fashion of the nation; they are the only fixed abodes of elegant and intelligent society, and the country is inhabited almost entirely by boorish peasantry. In England, on the contrary, the metropolis is a mere gathering-place, or general rendezvous, of the polite classes, where they devote a small portion of the year to a hurry of gayety and dissipation, and, having indulged this kind of carnival, return again to the apparently more congenial habits of rural life. The various orders of society are therefore diffused over the whole surface of the kingdom, and the more retired neighborhoods afford specimens of the different ranks.The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feeling. They possess a quick sensibility to the beauties of nature, and a keen relish for the pleasures and employments of the country. This passion seems inherent in them. Even the inhabitants of cities, born and brought up among brick walls and bustling streets, enter with facility into rural habits, and evince a tact for rural occupation. The merchant has his snug retreat in the vicinity of the metropolis, where he often displays as much pride and zeal in the cultivation of his flower-garden, and the maturing of his fruits, as he does in the conduct of his business, and the success of a commercial enterprise. Even those less fortunate individuals, who are doomed to pass their lives in the midst of din and traffic, contrive to have something that shall remind them of the green aspect of nature. In the most dark and dingy quarters of the city, the drawing-room window resembles frequently a bank of flowers; every spot capable of vegetation has its grass-plot and flower-bed; and every square its mimic park, laid out with picturesque taste, and gleaming with refreshing verdure.Those who see the Englishman only in town, are apt to form an unfavorable opinion of his social character. He is either absorbed in business, or distracted by the thousand engagements that dissipate time, thought, and feeling, in this huge metropolis. He has, therefore, too commonly, a look of hurry and abstraction. Wherever he happens to be, he is on the point of going somewhere else; at the moment he is talking on one subject, his mind is wandering to another; and while paying a friendly visit, he is calculating how he shall economize time so as to pay the other visits allotted to the morning. An immense metropolis, like London, is calculated to make men selfish and uninteresting. In their casual and transient meetings, they can but deal briefly in commonplaces. They present but the cold superfices of character--its rich and genial qualities have no time to be warmed into a flow.It is in the country that the Englishman gives scope to his natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from the cold formalities and negative civilities of town; throws off his habits of shy reserve, and becomes joyous and free-hearted. He manages to collect round him all the conveniences and elegancies of polite life, and to banish its restraints. His country-seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious retirement, tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paintings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting implements of all kinds, are at hand. He puts no constraint, either upon his guests or himself, but, in the true spirit of hospitality, provides the means of enjoyment, and leaves every one to partake according to his inclination.The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, and in what is called landscape gardening, is unrivalled.They have studied Nature intently, and discovered an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those charms which, in other countries, she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and spread them, like witchery, about their rural abodes.Nothing can be more imposing than the magnificence of English park scenery. Vast lawns that extend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there clumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of foliage. The solemn pomp of groves and woodland glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across them; the hare, bounding away to the covert; or the pheasant, suddenly bursting upon the wing. The brook, taught to wind in natural meanderings, or expand into a glassy lake--the sequestered pool, reflecting the quivering trees, with the yellow leaf sleeping on its bosom, and the trout roaming fearlessly about its limpid waters; while some rustic temple, or sylvan statue, grown green and dank with age, gives an air of classic sanctity to the seclusion.These are but a few of the features of park scenery; but what most delights me, is the creative talent with which the English decorate the unostentatious abodes of middle life. The rudest habitation, the most unpromising and scanty portion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, becomes a little paradise. With a nicely discriminating eye, he seizes at once upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind the future landscape. The sterile spot grows into loveliness under his hand; and yet the operations of art which produce the effect are scarcely to be perceived. The cherishing and training of some trees; the cautious pruning of others; the nice distribution of flowers and plants of tender and graceful foliage; the introduction of a green slope of velvet turf; the partial opening to a peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of water;-all these are managed with a delicate tact, a pervading yet quiet assiduity, like the magic touchings with which a painter finishes up a favorite picture.The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the country, has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural economy that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass-plot before the door, the little flower-bed bordered with snug box, the woodbine trained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about the lattice; the pot of flowers in the window; the holly, providently planted about the house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, and to throw in a semblance of green summer to cheer the fireside; all these bespeak the influence of taste, flowing down from high sources, and pervading the lowest levels of the public mind. If ever Love, as poets sing, delights to visit a cottage, it must be the cottage of an English peasant.The fondness for rural life among the higher classes of the English has had a great and salutary effect upon the national character. I do not know a finer race of men than the English gentlemen. Instead of the softness and effeminacy which characterize the men of rank in most countries, they exhibit a union of elegance and strength, a robustness of frame and freshness of complexion, which I am inclined to attribute to their living so much in the open air, and pursuing so eagerly the invigorating recreations of the country. The hardy exercises produce also a healthful tone of mind and spirits, and a manliness and simplicity of manners, which even the follies and dissipations of the town cannot easily pervert, and can never entirely destroy. In the country, too, the different orders of society seem to approach more freely, to be more disposed to blend and operate favorably upon each other. The distinctions between them do not appear to be so marked and impassable as in the cities. The manner in which property has been distributed into small estates and farms has established a regular gradation from the noblemen, through the classes of gentry, small landed proprietors, and substantial farmers, down to the laboring peasantry;and while it has thus banded the extremes of society together, has infused into each intermediate rank a spirit of independence. This, it must be confessed, is not so universally the case at present as it was formerly; the larger estates having, in late years of distress, absorbed the smaller, and, in some parts of the country, almost annihilated the sturdy race of small farmers. These, however, I believe, are but casual breaks in the general system I have mentioned.In rural occupation, there is nothing mean and debasing. It leads a, man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, operated upon by the purest and most elevating of external influences. Such a man may be simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar. The man of refinement, therefore, finds nothing revolting in an intercourse with the lower orders in rural life, as he does when he casually mingles with the lower orders of cities. He lays aside his distance and reserve, and is glad to waive the distinctions of rank, and to enter into the honest, heartfelt enjoyments of common life. Indeed, the very amusements of the country bring, men more and more together; and the sound hound and horn blend all feelings into harmony. I believe this is one great reason why the nobility and gentry are more popular among the inferior orders in England than they are in any other country; and why the latter have endured so many excessive pressures and extremities, without repining more generally at the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege.To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society may also be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British literature; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life; those incomparable descriptions of Nature, that abound in the British poets--that have continued down from "The Flower and the Leaf," of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral writers of other countries appear as if they had paid Nature an occasional visit, and become acquainted with her general charms; but the British poets have lived and revelled with her--they have wooed her in her most secret haunts--they have watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not tremble in the breeze--a leaf could not rustle to the ground--a diamond drop could not patter in the stream--a fragrance could not exhale from the humble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the morning, but it has been noticed by these impassioned and delicate observers, and wrought up into some beautiful morality.The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural occupations has been wonderful on the face of the country. A great part of the island is rather level, and would be monotonous, were it not for the charms of culture; but it is studded and gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces, and embroidered with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little home scenes of rural repose and sheltered quiet. Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture; and as the roads are continually winding, and the view is shut in by groves and hedges, the eye is delighted by a continual succession of small landscapes of captivating loveliness.The great charm, however, of English scenery, is the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober well-established principles, of hoary usage and reverend custom. Every thing seems to be the growth of ages of regular and peaceful existence. The old church of remote architecture, with its low, massive portal; its Gothic tower; its windows rich with tracery and painted glass, in scrupulous preservation; its stately monuments of warriors and worthies of the olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil; its tombstones, recording successive generations of sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still plough the same fields, and kneel at the same altar;--the parsonage, a quaint irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the tastes of various ages and occupants;--the stile and foot-path leading from the churchyard, across pleasant fields, and along shadyhedgerows, according to an immemorial right of way;--the neighboring village, with its venerable cottages, its public green sheltered by trees, under which the forefathers of the present race have sported;--the antique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene; all these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, a hereditary transmission of homebred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation.It is a pleasing sight, of a Sunday morning, when the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces, and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their own hands have spread around them.It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of affection in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments; and I cannot close these desultory remarks better, than by quoting the words of a modern English poet, who has depicted it with remarkable felicity:Through each gradation, from the castled hall,The city dome, the villa crowned with shade,But chief from modest mansions numberless,In town or hamlet, shelt'ring middle life,Down to the cottaged vale, and straw-roof'd shed;This western isle has long been famed for scenesWhere bliss domestic finds a dwelling-place;Domestic bliss, that, like a harmless dove,(Honor and sweet endearment keeping guard,)Can centre in a little quiet nestAll that desire would fly for through the earth;That can, the world eluding, be itselfA world enjoyed; that wants no witnessesBut its own sharers, and approving Heaven;That, like a flower deep hid in rock cleft,Smiles, though 't is looking only at the sky.*From a poem on the death of the Princess Charlotte, by the Reverend Rann Kennedy, A.M.。
《乡村》：圈地运动中农村的真实写照作者：吾文泉来源：《青年文学家》2015年第03期摘 ;要：乔治·克莱布的《乡村》是感伤主义诗歌的代表之作，描写圈地运动前后英国农村的沧桑巨变，表达了诗人深刻的情感体验和对农村因圈地运动而衰落所产生的无限悲伤之情。
本文从圈地运动与克莱布诗歌《乡村》的关系入手，探讨圈地运动对英国农村、人性、道德观和价值观等的深刻影响以及在感伤主义诗歌中的反映。
关键词：圈地运动;感伤主义;乡村写作作者简介：吾文泉，1963年生，苏州人，南通大学外国语学院教授，文学博士，主要从事英美文学研究。
[中图分类号]：I106 [文献标识码]：A[文章编号]：1002-2139（2015）-03-0-01由于英国工业革命和圈地运动的加速发展，社会矛盾日益加剧，中下层资产阶级文人深感社会贫富不均。
感伤主义正是这种情绪在文学上的表现，它夸大感情的作用，表现对矛盾重重的社会现实的不满。
作家们触景生情、沉思冥想，满腔哀怨，寄情于物。
乔治·克莱布的《乡村》（The Village， 1782）是感伤主义诗歌的代表之作，描写圈地运动前后英国农村的沧桑巨变，表达了诗人深刻的情感体验和对农村因圈地运动而衰落所产生的无限悲伤之情。
本文从圈地运动与克莱布诗歌《乡村》的关系入手，探讨圈地运动对英国农村、人性、道德观和价值观等的深刻影响以及在感伤主义诗歌中的反映。
圈地运动是欧洲资本主义农业土地制度的改革运动，尤其盛行于英国。
圈地运动即把原互不相连的“敞田”和“条田”以及公地和荒地等用树篱或石墙圈围起来，改农耕为畜牧或大农场，以提高生产率，获取更高的利润。
18、19世纪，英国城市工业进一步发展，对农产品的需求加大，农业技术的加速革新，以及圈地通过议会立法的合法化，英国的圈地运动达到巅峰。
但广大底层农民（公薄持有者和短期租佃农）是受害者，他们被驱赶，或被强制终止租佃期。
他们的家园被毁，无数失地农民流离失所，或沦为雇工，或涌向城市成为廉价劳动力，或移民海外。
简·奥斯汀笔下的英国乡村作者：小A来源：《科教新报》2018年第31期英国有太多标志性元素：塔桥、大本钟、红色双层巴士，当然还有英国的乡村。
英国是工业文明的先驱，城市高度发达，然而乡村才是英国的灵魂。
乡村在英国意味着美丽的风光、舒适的生活以及良好的修养，这里是上层名流的聚集地，这里有意想不到的惊喜。
让我们追随英国著名女作家简·奥斯汀的笔触，走进英国乡村，体验别样的英伦风光。
《成为简·奥斯汀》汉普郡风光可能世人太偏爱简·奥斯汀，她的作品被多次翻拍成影视剧，就连她本人也被搬上了大荧幕。
《成为简·奥斯汀》就用传记的方式讲述了简·奥斯汀的一生：如何从一位被母亲不断撮合嫁给有钱人的牧师女儿，成长为用写作挣脱枷锁并养活自己的女作家。
面对贵族的求婚，简不是没有心动过，那些华丽的衣服、热闹的舞会，总是要比自己动手刨土豆更吸引人啊。
上流社会的诱惑、母亲的催促、社会对女人的束缚，简在不断地挣扎，最终她还是不能接受没有爱情的婚姻，勇敢地拒绝了瓦斯莱的求婚，与汤姆·勒夫罗伊私定终生。
汉普郡的史提文顿小镇位于英格兰南部，简·奥斯汀在这里生活了25年，这里如今还保留着简父亲生前服务过的教堂。
简的故居已经淹没在岁月中，只有在灌木中的柠檬树还能证明曾经主人生活的痕迹。
乡村农舍和富丽堂皇的大庄园、纯正的英国口音、古典雅致的英伦服饰、还有银质的餐具仿佛把人带回简·奥斯汀的时代，呼吸那时的空气，感受那时的情怀。
《理智与情感》宁静的乡村农庄没有继承权的母女四人，在老庄园主去世后被长子赶出了庄园。
令人没有想到的是，刻薄长嫂的弟弟爱德华爱上了三姐妹中的大姐艾莉诺，经济和地位的巨大差距让艾莉诺不断克制自己对爱德华的喜欢，理智地将这段情愫埋藏在心中。
与理智的大姐不同，妹妹玛丽安则敢爱敢恨，迅速与英雄救美的青年才俊威洛比坠入爱河，完全无视布兰登上校对自己的深情厚意，然而四处留情的威洛比并没有同玛丽安结婚的打算，一时间姐妹俩深陷情感和生活的双重打击。
英国：城乡⼀体中的乡村规划作为世界上第⼀个建⽴完整的城乡规划体系的国家，英国在乡村建设和发展中取得了举世瞩⽬的成就，它⼀直将城市与乡村的规划紧密结合，实现整体布局，共同发展。
英国的乡村规划和管理⼀直以来实⾏城乡⼀体规划管理的模式，于规划中强调与⾏政事权的对等，规划体系与⾏政区划的设置基本相对应，借鉴英国的乡村规划管理经验，对我国美丽乡村建设、乡村地区旅游产业的发展具有重要意义。
19世纪末期⼯业⾰命后的英国，由于快速发展的⼯业化和城市化进程，城市的发展开始严重侵占乡村发展的空间，⼤量的⼯⼚和城市建筑的⽆序扩张与蔓延，迫使英国于1932年颁布了《城乡规划法》（Town and Planning Act），这是第⼀部包含乡村规划的法规，它的出现代表着乡村规划与管理开始受到重视，从空间层⾯上促进了城市与乡村的融合，但从实际意义上来说，乡村的规划与管理仍然处于弱势地位。
随着城市化进程的飞速发展，为了遏制城市化对乡村地区带来的破坏，英国于1947年的《城乡规划法》明确提出要遏制城市向乡村扩张，确保乡村农业⽤地与林业⽤地不收城市发展规划的影响，并对乡村地区历史⼈⽂区域进⾏保护，这⼀规划的实⾏，在明确了规划的定义、内容、权属的同时，确保了乡村规划的重要地位。
此后，英国先后颁布了《规划与补偿法》（1911）、《规划与强制性购买法》（2004）以及《第七号⽂件：乡村地区的可持续发展》（2004）等法律法规与指导⽂件对乡村地区的发展与规划进⾏指导，改善乡村地区⼈民⽣活与⾃然环境，确保乡村地区的可持续发展，这代表着英国规划体系由战后早期的传统规划体系向新空间规划体系转变，新的空间规划体系的改⾰更好地回应了乡村发展的现实要求，指导了乡村发展策略的转变。
其中《第七号⽂件》是英国乡村规划管理的主要依据，根据⽂件要求，地⽅政府在编制地⽅规划时，涉及乡村建设与发展的部分，地⽅政府应当保证乡村地区避免由于不恰当的开发遭受破坏，并对乡村地区的⾃然‘、⼈⽂’、地理等具有价值的区域进⾏保护，提升乡村区域的价值同时确保可持续发展。
行走英国灵魂在乡村找到归宿作为世界上第一个实现城市化的国家，曾经饱受环境污染之苦的英国人深知打造田园城市的重要性，并把乡村文化看作英国留给现代生活的遗产“绿草如茵的平原，枝繁叶茂的参天大树，蜿蜒流淌的清泉，古拙威严的城堡、雕像，时隐时现的丛林绿篱，用花草精心装饰的乡间小屋……阴霾的清晨，达西先生走出自己美丽的庄园，跨过起伏的山丘，在清晨的薄雾中走向伊丽莎白的家……”《傲慢与偏见》里描述了英国乡村美丽的田园风光。
不要以为这是简?奥斯汀夸大的想象，其实小说中“达西庄园”的原型就在英格兰谢菲尔德附近的查兹沃斯庄园，距离伦敦仅四个小时的车程。
“出了伦敦都是村。
”虽然这是英国华人留学生们之间的玩笑话，但的确是英国城乡布局的现状。
作为世界上第一个实现城市化的国家，曾经饱受环境污染之苦的英国人深知打造田园城市的重要性，并把乡村文化看作英国留给现代生活的遗产。
如今的英国，即便像谢菲尔德这样的老工业城市，也能让人看山望水思乡愁。
在日本、中国等国追求核心城市的“大”的时候，英国伦敦城市群追求的是“小而精”的田园梦。
乡村，灵魂的归宿英国人对于乡村生活有着与生俱来的热爱。
在他们的脑子里，英国的灵魂只有在乡村才能找到归宿。
石墙、牧场、羊群、石桥、流水、人家……构成了最典型的英国乡村画面。
村子里，每一家的花园都收拾得精致典雅，树篱修剪得整整齐齐，路面干净整洁。
乡村生活远离尘嚣、自然祥和，犹如陶渊明笔下的世外桃源。
无怪乎旅英多年的林语堂曾说，“世界大同的理想生活，就是住英国乡村的房子”。
英国人的乡村情结大概要追溯到19世纪帝国时代，那些远征殖民地的英国人思念故乡时，凭空把英国想象成带有浪漫色彩的乡村。
据说第一次世界大战时，战场上的士兵们收到印有教堂、田野和花园，尤其是村庄的明信片，所受到的鼓舞远大于无数次地挥动国旗。
乡村不仅有迷人的景色，也有便利的生活设施。
除大商场、电影院、剧院、体育馆等大型设施外，各种基础设施和公共服务在乡间均有提供。
