Browsing by Subject "persian gardens"

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Death, Poetry, And Dynastic Identity: Reimagining The Gardens At The Taj Mahal
(2019-05-01) Uhlhorn, Seton; Talbot, Cynthia
Funerary gardens such as the Taj were spaces in which dynastic identities and literary culture entwined to form a physical landscape. I argue that the experience of the Taj through its gardens is not as singular as prior scholarship has suggested. Instead, a visitor would have experienced a landscape that was evocative not only of Quranic paradise but also of the power of the emperor and the imaginary garden landscapes of love, longing, and separation as created in Persian poetry. In studying the cultural memory of the Mughals and encompassing their patronage of both physical and imaginary gardens, it is evident that viewing the gardens simply through the conventional lens of a paradise garden and its attributes of shade and flowing water makes for an incomplete picture. In this thesis, I argue for a new way to reinterpret the gardens at the Taj Mahal, while considering the ambiguity between secular and religious and physical and imaginary landscapes, in which plantings, perspective, and sensory engagement are paramount. These categories allow dynastic identity, cultural memory, and quranic paradise to interact, making the process of reimagining the gardens more fruitful and experience focused.