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The Lay of the Land

Metaphor As Experience and History in American Life and Letters

Annette Kolodny

Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 11/2017
Pages: 200
Subject: History, Literary Criticism, Social Science | University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9781469619569

DESCRIPTION

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.