The ‘Poetry of Old Roofs’: Edith Wharton and the Art of Architecture
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2022
Journal / Book Title
Image & Narrative
Abstract
Known internationally for novels such as The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1921), New York-born Edith Wharton (1862-1937) began her writing career as a poet in 1878 with a self-published volume of Verses. She equated the work of architects and garden designers to that of poets in travel essays from the 1890s and early 1900s, many of which were collected and republished under the titles Italian Villas and their Gardens (1904), Italian Backgrounds (1905), and A Motor-Flight Through France (1908). The present article explores the aesthetics of writing, architecture, and home design in the earliest part of Wharton’s career in order to better understand her poetic vision.
Journal ISSN / Book ISBN
1780-678X
Book Editor(s)
Bertrand Bourgeois and Clemence Regnier
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Emery, Elizabeth, "The ‘Poetry of Old Roofs’: Edith Wharton and the Art of Architecture" (2022). Department of World Languages and Cultures Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 79.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/modernlang-literatures-facpubs/79
Published Citation
“The ‘Poetry of Old Roofs’: Edith Wharton and the Art of Architecture.” « Habiter en Poète » à travers le monde : configurations poétiques de l’espace intime (xixe-xxie siècles), special issue of Image & Narrative, vol. 23, no. 3, 2022, coedited by Bertrand Bourgeois and Marie-Clémence Régnier, pp. 67-85.