Urban life in English literary tradition was defined against a rural counter-value

Evidence

Through a volume which focused on the English literary tradition but also touches on the work of Dostoievsky, Engels, Balzac, and Baudelaire, Williams describes the manner in which urban life connoted a series of positive and negative values, the corollaries of which were logically identified with the rural way of life. He highlights notions of learning, of communication and of light as the positively signified aspects of city life in contrast to the peace, innocence, and simple values of the country. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2264