If Repton created the scenery that resonated with Romantics, William Gilpin was the one who put the Lake Country on the map. Travel writer and theorist of the picturesque, Gilpin was the writer most responsible for the 18th-century enthusiasm for scenic tourism. He was also the most influential of those who, according to Maggie Lane, “‘discovered’ and enthused about the Lake District in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.” Encouraged by Gilpin, “People of leisure began to travel northwards, into regions hitherto considered bleak and barbaric, to be thrilled by the dramatic scenery so different from anywhere else in England.”
Again, without writers like Gilpin, would Romanticism have existed? More subtly, did Gilpin not only point the Romantics toward their favorite haunts but also help cultivate the sensibility that developed into romanticism?
Somewhere, surely, there’s a monograph - probably a whole series of journal articles - on this.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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