Textual Analysis
Voyant Tools
Three primary sources serve as the basis for analyzing key concepts that dominated early modern English gardening and reflected the concerns of that society. The Gardener’s Labyrinth by Thomas Hill, 1577, The Florists Vede-Mecum by Samuel Gilbert, 1692 and The Compleat Gardener’s Practice by Stephen Blake, 1664, are all sources written by practicing gardeners about the popular gardening practices in early modern England. The three primary sources analyzed served as “how to” guides on creating and maintaining an early modern English garden. The authors discuss the components of early modern gardens in England and the natural elements that allowed these gardens to thrive, including the importance of healthy soil and weather prediction.
This analysis identifies the elements that were the most important to be controlled within a garden. Control was one of the most closely held values within early modern society and such control reflected the success and stability of the nation. Gardens, therefore, became a microcosm of the state and ambitions of society and the nation. Author Thomas Hill provides detailed instructions on pruning foliage and controlling the directional flow of water. Although none of these sources state out-right the importance of control within the early modern world it is the instruction of altering the natural world to achieve perfection. This fixation on control is most evident in the Hill’s discussion of the means by which the elements earth and water should be constrained. When looking at the Voyant analyzation of these three primary sources, earth and water are among the most popular terms providing evidence that early modern English gardeners sought most often to control and manipulate these elements.
Hill provides detailed instructions on pruning foliage and controlling the directional flow of water. Words like water and plant hold obvious importance to this analysis, however, perhaps less obvious is the importance of terms like shall and owner. The term "shall" implies the intention of expressing a strong assertion or intention. In the same way the terms "owner" and "set" imply an expressed control and ownership of these natural spaces. It is the use and popularity of these terms that provide evidence to the idea of control as a important value within early modern English culture.
Voyant Tools is a web-based application used by many disciplines to assist in in textual analysis and understanding. The purpose of the Voyant Tools is to support scholarly interpretation of texts or corpus. The usage of this application allows for a deeper understanding of a wide range of textual sources with minimum effort, Voyant allows users to interact with texts in new ways, aiding in academic discovery.
Figure 1: Voyant Tools corpus view: Cirrus, Terms Berry, Trends, Mandala, Bubbleline
The maintenance of formal gardens was complex and focused on maintaining the achieved control over these natural spaces. In his book The Gardener’s Labyrinth Thomas Hill gives advice on the proper practices of early modernEnglish Gardening. Hill’s writing serves as a reference book on how to care for plants and herbs “... they labored then to become skillful and to use a greater care about the order ring and apt dressing of Garden plots, by well fencing and comely furnishing of their ground with sundry needful and delectable trees, plants and herbs...”[Hill, 1998]. Hill’s knowledgeable advice is accompanied with artfully detailed drawings and prints, depicting several designs for elaborate knot gardens and other types of garden layouts. The Compleat Gardens Practice by Stephen Blake covers the exact practices of early modernEnglish gardening in three sections: The Gardens of Pleasure, The Physical Garden and The Kitchen Garden. Blake concerns himself with every aspect of the art of gardening, the arrangements of spaces and the its overall improvement with a variety of knots. This closly reflects the early modern ideal of perfecting nature through art. This source also delves into the technicalities of forming nature into art “...how herbs, flowers and trees according to art and nature may be propagated...” [Blake, 2007]. Horticulturalist, Samuel Gilbert pours his wealth of knowledge in to his book: The Florists Vede-Mecum, published in 1692. Gilbert’s work differs from the previously discussed works simply in the amount of detail in which he covers the subject of gardening. He discusses principles of design, moving through the seasons and month-by- month advising his readers on what is best to do during these times of year and what to expect from gardened spaces. From there Gilbert covers every variety of flora and fauna that can be successfully sown within the English climate. Gilbert describes the purpose of this writing and the manner it should be used “... a book wholly design'd for practice, as this is, to put the best in mind what each Month to do, and instructing most, how in many particulars not hitherto printed or divulged; each direction from the beginning to the end being an experimented truth, and the whole fitted for a pocket companion to all Lovers of Flowers and their propagation” [Gilbert, 2009]. Gilbert's writing demonstrates the importance of control within early modernsociety and how this control can be obtained through creating art of nature.
Figure 2: Bubbleline
The corpus tool above, figure two, displays the frequency of key words found within the three chosen primary sources. This tool allows users to quickly identify patterns within lengthy and complex sources, patterns that provide evidence to support that the Renaissance gardens of early modern England did reflect the social values of the culture in which they were created. The importance of the conclusions provided by this particular tool is not the presence of action words expressing control but in addressing the elements that early modern gardens controlled. The terms "water", "earth", and "time" occurs often in all three sources, these terms paired with the use of terms "shall", "owner" and "set" provide evidence to the idea of the desired control of the natural world. Each source is represented by a line, each chosen word, represented by a colored bubble. The size of the size of the bubble correlates with the frequency of the world, the more the word is used the more the word is used in the corresponding segment of text the larger the bubble. Given that the most popular terms are earth and water it is clear that early modernhorticulturist worked to control these natural elements and achieving this control allowed them to obtain perfection while simultaneously displaying the wealth and status of their patron. Hovering over a location on the document or Bubbleline will display the numerical value of each word, hovering of the term with breakdown the term frequencies for that source. The number of terms displayed can be controlled by the user by adjusting the “segments” slider.
Figure 3: Terms Berry
Figure three is the TermsBerry, the number terms included within the analyzation can be increased and decreased within the application, in addition individual can be search. This application is very similar to the Cirrus or world cloud tool, however is tool is much more useful with the added collocates and corpus coverage information. The conclusion that can be gleaned from this analyses tool is the specific number of documents that cover the key terms important to understanding the cultural significance of early modern English gardens and their reflection of early modern social values. This analysis displays evidence that the underlying theme of control of the natural as a display of wealth and staus. The most frequent terms appear in the center of the cluster and are the largest in size. For example,the terms "shall" and "set" is located toward the center of the cluster showing that these terms are often used. Again, the frequent use of these terms within the corpus verifies that the control of natural elements was a highly valued achievement within garden design, a reflection of early modern English society. This tool works to display the combined power of visualizing high frequency terms with the utility of exploring how those same terms coexist. This tool displays the frequency of each term within each individual source and across the span the entire corpus. The color of the circles within the cluster collocates directly with the frequency of the term specified within. The terms spanning out from the center are the least frequent but still significant terms their size correlating with their frequency. By hovering over the individual terms each of the other bubbles will indicate the collocate frequency for that term within the specified context.