The Lay of the Land

The author argues that land is perceived as a feminine entity as evidenced in the literary writings and verbal patterns of American men

Auteur

Annette Kolodny is former Dean of the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona. She is the author of The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860. She currently teaches courses on ecocriticism and the American frontiers at the University of Arizona.

Texte du rabat

An original and highly unusual psycholinguistic study of American literature and culture from 1584 to 1860, this volume focuses on the metaphor of 'land-as-woman.' It is the first systematic documentation of the recurrent responses to the American continent as a feminine entity (as Mother, as Virgin, as Temptress, as the Ravished), and it is also the first systematic inquiry into the metaphor's implications for the current ecological crisis.