Brady DeHoust -- Aesthetic Tourism at Blenheim Palace; or, The Disappointed Would-Be Knight

The recent class theme of “aesthetic sojourning” versus “aesthetic tourism” has helped me put words to a feeling which pervaded my time in England this past summer. Indeed, it is a sentiment which has been prevalent throughout much of my life and education, from the time I was a small boy visiting the zoo all the way up to my college career, any time I’ve ever taken what is commonly called a “tour.” This summer’s experience at Blenheim Palace in England was simply the most recent and thus the most vivid occurrence of this feeling.

This trip to Blenheim Palace was part of my study abroad excursion last July. It was a pleasant enough experience; the palace and its grounds are picturesque to the extreme, and we were blessed with a rare sunny English day on which to enjoy it. Vast, well-groomed lawns surrounded the sandy-walled castle, with an elegant and expansive pond populated by geese and swans, and woods that recalled Sherwood hemming in the view in three directions. A great stone bridge spanned the water. Towering gold-trimmed gate towers that looked straight out of Babylon greeted us tourists, and the courtyard remained the stuff of storybooks, though gift shops and the like betrayed the ravaging of consumerism. Even castle walls can’t seem to keep that stuff out. The interior was chock full of ornate decorations, gilded furniture, portraits galore, marble and hardwood, armor and weapons, and any other decadent decor one might expect from a thousand-year-old palace. The rear entrance lead to a romantic garden full of classical-style statues and perfectly pruned shrubs; one could nearly imagine a courtly 18th-century garden party on the very grounds we walked. And, of course, each detail was related in detail by the bent little old soft-spoken British lady who was our faithful tour guide.    Truly, it was extraordinary.

But something prevented the experience from being quite absorbing, from encompassing the senses and giving wings to the imagination. Though I walked the halls of dukes and princess, and gazed on the arms of knights, I could not become one. I simply could not penetrate the hazy medium of velvet ropes on brass poles, and the gentle, clockwork herding of the tour guide, and least of all the crowds of other tourists, each of whom was like a cannonball in the hull of my imagination as it sought to leave the port of tourism and strike out for the horizon. Granted, I wax dramatic, but still I felt quite dissatisfied leaving Blenheim. I had walked through history and come out the other side completely unchanged, uninspired, unaffected. I had reached out my hand toward relics of the past to find a thick glass partition which not only prevented me from touching, but obscured the things themselves. Rather than step into the home and the armor of an English knight, I strode through like I stride through the aisle of a grocery store. Looking back, what I wanted to do was sojourn, but what I did was, of course, tour.

It’s sad, but there’s something lost when you open things up to the public. It reminds me of what Tocqueville said about democracy, that it would increase equality but tend to decrease the spectacular. In the same way, opening up a palace to the public allows millions the chance to brush by history, though back when it was truly a palace a few people really lived it. Perhaps if it was an old, forgotten ruin, one soul would stumble upon it and be captivated by its arcane beauty and strength, and be truly affected; he would have the chance to become a knight or a lord, though millions would be bereft the chance to see.

At any rate, this recent experience of disappointment is what really demonstrates the difference between aesthetic sojourning and tourism.