Summary
"Where the World May Ne'er Invade"? Green Retreats and Garden Theatre in La Princesse de Clèves, The History ofMiss Betsy Thoughtless, and Cecilia J. David Macey, Jr Give me O indulgent Fate! Give me, yet, before I Dye, A sweet, but absolute Retreat, 'Mongst Paths so lost, and Trees so high, That the World may ne'er invade, Through such Windings and such Shade, My unshaken Liberty.1 The speaker in Anne Finch's poem "The Petition for an Absolute Retreat " (1713) expresses her desire for "A sweet, but absolute Retreat," and she locates this retreat out of doors, in a retired and inaccessible corner of a grove where unwelcome visitors will be unable to infringe on her "unshaken Liberty." Finch is not alone in her desire for a green retreat: the gardening mania that gripped England during the
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