Travel Writing and Englishness in Rural Rides.

Rural Rides, a collection of travel essays by William Cobbett, an outstanding essayist during the late period of British Romanticism, truthfully documents what he saw and heard as well as what he thought about the transformation of social and cultural values of the time when he traveled by horse in Southeast England from 1821 to 1826. Cobbett's nostalgic writing about the picturesque landscape of England profoundly touched the nerves of the Georgian and Victorian residents who were deeply trapped in the dilemma of commercial revolution and urbanization. And its unique nostalgic style has turned it into one of the most notable essay collections in the history of English literature. To this end, this article aims to interpret the causes and connotation of Cobbett's nostalgic travel writing, in light of Boym's reflective nostalgic theory, and find out how Cobbett represents the "new" and "old" elements of England by integrating Englishness and the local landscapes that he encountered during his travel, so as to refine his own concept of Englishness, which is a dynamic mechanism for generation constructed jointly by the traditional locality and new elements of the era. Also, the article shows how, based on such a premise, he articulates the vision of an ideal England with both rural serenity and urban prosperity, thus fulfilling his purpose of politicizing his literary aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]