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.