Gardens of Heaven and Earth

A unique and discursive history of gardens and their significance across a wide range of cultures, Gardens of Heaven and Earth explores the meanings behind our efforts to maintain, manipulate and ornament our environment. Drawing particular inspiration from the work of the eighteenth-century Swedish philosopher and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, this book explores the symbolism of gardens and their use—by Swedenborg and by others—as a metaphor for a model of heaven. Gardens of Heaven and Earth is a lyrical study that investigates the nature of experience, the limitations of language and ideas of the garden as both a relationship to be experienced and as a symbolic language to be read. Discussing gardens in relation to the life and writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, this short work brings a fresh perspective to the roles that gardens have played in delighting and sustaining the human condition throughout the ages. This volume is augmented by three black-and white-illustrations and also contains a chronology of Swedenborg’s life and works, an inventory of Swedenborg’s own garden in Stockholm, a bibliography, and an index. Read more