The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters - Paperback

by Annette Kolodny (Author)

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.

Back Jacket

'A Fascinating Freudian psychohistory of the 'pastoral impulse' in male American literature from the first documents of exploration to Faulkner and Bellow, and from the Virginia colonies to People's Park....An ambitious book with messages for ecologists and environmentalists as well as feminists.' - Elaine Showalter, Signs