In this article, I consider how landscape was depicted in Swedish place descriptions during the first half of the nineteenth century. By 'place description', I mean a text that describes smaller areas such as a parish, ecclesiastical living, or hundred. The authors were usually members of the rural elite, often writing for their own purposes, although not infrequently at the prompting of the local county agricultural society; alternatively, and especially towards the end of the period, they wrote asan exercise of their profession as land surveyors. Some of the place descriptions were printed by county agricultural societies or by the individual authors; the majority went unpublished at the time, but many have subsequently been printed to meet the evergreen interest in local history. Each individual description is unique, but the genre as a whole is replete with standard forms and stereotypes, with regard to both content and style. Thus there is usually a report on the district's topography and geography; its agriculture, commerce, and industry; its financial and economic state; and often a historical or antiquarian reflection on its past. A great deal of space is given over to accounts of the manors and other residences belonging to people of rank in the district. At the same time, the general populace's life and habits, their traits and deficiencies of character, are described in moralizing terms, sometimes in great detail and often in a somewhat stereotypical manner.1
展开▼
