Walking through: nostalgia, Mythogeography and the Rural Dérive in Peter Riley’s Alstonefield

Abstract

ABSTRACT Landscape poet Peter Riley uses the Situationist dérive in order to negotiate the cultural landscape of the British countryside, his collection Alstonefield (2002) forming a psychogeographic investigation into spaces of nostalgia, contradiction and pastoralism in British ruralism. This essay will argue that Riley adapts the urban dérive for a contemporary rural landscape, exploring the radicalisms of pastoral tropes and exposing the spectacle in British rural perceptions. Using the framework of Phil Smith Mythogeography, a contemporary theatrical adaption of the Situationist dérive, my aim is to explore the role of walking as a negotiation of rural spectacle within the wider Radical Landscape Poetry movement.