Songlines: Ruskin and the Roads of Europe

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Abstract

Ruskin’s Europe can be understood as a network of roads, physical and imaginary, which interconnect in a single vital configuration. Ruskin saw this as a distinct terroir, a cultural and spatial ecosystem created over millennia. What he termed the ‘Old Road’ is an attempt to unify the topographical and historical discovery of physical journeying to a conceptual road of intellectual reflection and the imagination. Ruskin used, but lamented, the railways just as we use, but lament, the internet. These powerful tools come at a price, fore shortening encounter, memory and time. Ruskin fought to defend Europe’s old road as one we are in danger of forgetting and which he called on us to reclaim.


open access

Published Dec. 15, 2020 | Language: en

Keywords Europe • Ruskin • Tourism • Roads • Old Road • Travel

Copyright © 2020 Howard Hull. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted in unadapted form only and provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-487-5/015


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