CLASSICAL ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSES

             Early Modern English Country House Design              The Faerie Queene--Spenser's Romantic Epic

 

·        symmetry and balance

·        allusions [columns, pediments, pilasters,

          balustrades, etc.] to the architecture of Greece

          and Rome*

·        high windows/much light

·        floor plans based on careful, symmetrical design

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ·        Classical Epic forms: invocation of the muses, epic

       catalogues [lists], beginning in medias res, epic

      [extended] similes, epic hero, huge scope and thematic

       ambition

·        symmetry in form [e.g., parallels between characters such as Arthur & Lucifer, Una & Duessa, etc., and between settings--the House of Pride & the House of Holiness, etc.]

·        allusions in content to the classical epics [Homer's Iliad & Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid] and to earlier Renaissance epics, religious and Romantic [Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso]

·        clarity of imagery

 

 

*A COUPLE OF DETAILS SIGNIFYING CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE:  Pediments are forms such as these used as a decoration over porticoes, doors, windows, etc., in classical architecture.  A pilaster is an upright architectural member right-angled in plan, constructionally a pier but architecturally corresponding to a column, having capital, shaft, and base to agree with those of the columns of the same order. In most cases the projection from the wall is one third of its width, or less.  A balustrade is a row of balusters topped by a rail, serving as an open parapet, as along the edge of a balcony, terrace, bridge, staircase, or the eaves of a building.

                        

                  Classical Pediments                                                                          Pilasters                                       Balustrade

 

Longleat House--1580, Classical

Longleat House, a painting of the façade--notice the symmetry and the pilasters (rectangular columns with a capital and base, set into a wall as an ornamental motif)  'sunken' into the surface

Longleat House, detail of the south front

Longleat House, detail--notice the Ionic capitals on the pilasters

Wilton House, Wiltshire--1633, a classical design with neo-Palladian features (characteristic of the Renaissance architectural style of Palladio--Italian architect who developed a style based on the classicism of ancient Rome, breaking with the ornate conventions of the Italian Renaissance)

Whitehall Palace, Banqueting Hall--1619, a classical façade designed by Inigo Jones

Whitehall Palace, another view

Wooton Lodge--c. 1611, classical with a hint of the chivalric/heroic

Wooton Lodge, plan

Go to chivalric/heroic houses page.

Go to the fantastical/gothic houses page.

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