An important though little understood aspect of the response of nineteenth-century Americans to nature is the widespread interest in the scenery of swamps, jungles, and other wastelands. Dark Eden focuses on this developing interest in order to redefine cultural values during a transformative period of American history. Professor Miller shows how for many Americans in the period around the Civil War nature came to be regarded less as a source of high moral insight and more as a sanctuary from an ever more urbanised and technological environment. In the swamps and jungles of the South a whole range of writers and artists found a set of strange and exotic images by which to explore changing social realities of the times and the deep-seated personal pressures that accompanied them.
| ISBN: | 9780521375535 |
| Publication date: | 26th June 1990 |
| Author: | David Miller |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 350 pages |
| Series: | Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture |
| Genres: |
Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 Cultural studies |