The Land is a book-length narrative poem by Vita Sackville-West. Published in 1926 by William Heinemann, it is a Georgic celebration of the rural landscape, traditions and history of the Kentish Weald where Sackville-West lived. The poem was popular enough for there to be six print runs in the first three years of its publication aided in part by its winning the Hawthornden Prize for Literature.
Sackville-West began working on the poem while accompanying her husband Harold Nicolson, who was an English diplomat, to the East. Nicolson records in his diary before leaving that Sackville-West had âÂÂan idea of writing a sort of English GeorgicsâÂÂ. It has been speculated that the poem was a response to the homesickness that she felt for her home in Kent.
The poem adopts the traditional Georgic structure of the four seasons and is divided into four parts, running from Winter to Autumn, and documenting the agricultural traditions and changing landscape through the year. The poemâÂÂs intention to capture the natural processes that exist outside of history are made clear in the opening lines:
In this respect, Sackville-WestâÂÂs poem can be read within a transhistorical poetic tradition that includes VirgilâÂÂs Georgics (which provides the bookâÂÂs epigraph), HesiodâÂÂs Works and Days, and James ThomsonâÂÂs The Seasons. Sackville-West, however, claimed not to have read the Georgics until more than half of the poem had been written.
Some critics have read Sackville-WestâÂÂs poem as a response to the bleaker outlook and modernist style of T.S. EliotâÂÂs The Waste Land, which was published four-years prior. Where EliotâÂÂs work is famously difficult, pushing the boundaries of form, Sackville-WestâÂÂs turn to tradition can be seen as an act of literary conservatism.
Yet, while The Land is often read as a work steeped in tradition, critics have pointed to the way in which the poemâÂÂs seeming conservatism allowed it to smuggle expressions of lesbian desire past the censor. For instance, Suzanne Raitt reads the poem as âÂÂtypical of the homosexual subculture of the 1920s and 1930sâ in it suggestive use of natural metaphors and rural spaces.
The poem also arguably expresses Sackville-WestâÂÂs frustration with being disinherited from Knole on account of her sex:
The poem was awarded the Hawthornden Prize in 1927.
The poemâÂÂs broader critical reception was more mixed. In her review of the poem for T.P.âÂÂs Weekly, the writer Rebecca West described the poem as having âÂÂthe least chance of survivalâ since, while âÂÂa very fine achievementâ it neither gives âÂÂintense pleasureâ nor âÂÂextend[s] our knowledge of reality by making explicit a certain phase of our experienceâÂÂ.
Virginia Woolf satirises The Land in her novel ', whose central protagonist is partially based on Sackville-West, who was her lover during the 1920s. Orlando is described as working on a poem entitled âÂÂThe Oak TreeâÂÂ, which the novel presents as having âÂÂnothing of the modern spiritâ but nonetheless winning a popular literary award. Later, when Orlando tries to bury the poem at the base of the oak tree which inspired it, Woolf writes that it was âÂÂa return to the land of what the land has given meâÂÂ.
Many critics have picked up on this intertextual dimension and seen it as reflecting WoolfâÂÂs ambivalence towards Sackville-WestâÂÂs literary output.
Bazargan, Susan. 'The Uses of the Land: Vita Sackville-West's Pastoral Writings and Virginia Woolf's "Orlando".' Woolf Studies Annual 5 (1999).<br /> Blyth, Ian. 'A Sort of English Georgics: Vita Sackville-WestâÂÂs The Land. Forum for Modern Language Studies 45.1 (2008).<br /> Glendinning, Victorian. Vita: The Life of Sackville West. 1983. London: Penguin Books<br /> Raitt, Suzanne. Vita and Virginia: The Work and Friendship of V. SackvilleâÂÂWest and Virginia Woolf. 1993. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.<br /> West, Rebecca. 'The Poetry of 1927'. T.P.'s Weekly (7 Jan 1928).