Nature, environment and solitude

Conceptions of nature and environment were central to the understanding, practice and experience of solitude in the eighteenth century. Eighteenth-century writers located solitude in particular landscapes and environments and in turn, solitary natures and environments were then enrolled in wider discussions about a range of contemporary moral, political and philosophical issues, from how to live a good life to justifications for European colonisation. This chapter draws on anglophone literature from across the ‘long’ eighteenth century to show how ideas solitude shaped and were shaped by experiences and representations of changing rural and urban life, new elite landscape gardens, the depredations of rural poverty, domestic and international travel and the growing eighteenth-century interest in nature and natural history.