The Romantic Lakes from Wordsworth to Beatrix Potter - Jonathan Bate

00:00 // Introduction: Daniel Defoe's Horror of the Lakes 05:30 // Robinson Crusoe & the Bourgeois View of Nature 11:00 // Natural Religion, Deism & the Sublime 16:30 // John Brown's Letter: The First Praise of the Lake District 22:00 // William Gilpin & the Picturesque Movement 28:30 // Thomas Gray Tours the Lakes: Finding Paradise 35:00 // Thomas West's Guide & the "Stations" for Tourists 41:00 // The Claude Glass, Selfie Sticks & Satirising Tourists 47:30 // Wordsworth's Guide to the Lakes: A Radical Alternative 55:00 // Geology, Deep Time & the Legacy of Wordsworth When Daniel Defoe rode through the Lake District in the early 18th century, he described the area as ‘the wildest, most barren and frightful of any that I have passed over in England.’ But for Victorians such as Matthew Arnold and John Ruskin, the Lakes offered a landscape of supreme beauty. How did this change come about? In this lecture, Jonathan Bate follows in the footsteps of the 18th-century inventors of the ‘picturesque’ and shows how Wordsworth shaped the vision of his native region, leading to the foundation of the National Trust and the idea of a National Park. This lecture was recorded by Professor Sir Jonathan Bate on the 11th December 2018 Professor Bate was Gresham Professor of Rhetoric. He is a British academic, biographer, critic, broadcaster, novelist and scholar. He specialises in Shakespeare, Romanticism and Ecocriticism. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/r... Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham College's mission, please consider making a donation: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involve... Website: https://gresham.ac.uk X: https://x.com/GreshamCollege Facebook:   / greshamcollege   Instagram:   / greshamcollege   Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/greshamcolle... TikTok:   / greshamcollege   Support Us: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involve...