The Lay of the Land

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.