| Imagining the Forest Subjects: HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Midwest (IA IL IN KS MI MN MO ND NE OH SD WI).; NATURE / Essays.; LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General.; Natural history; Forests and forestry; Nature in literature.; Forestry in literature.; Forests in lit; Forests have always been more than just their trees. The forests in Michigan (and similar forests in other Great Lakes states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota) played a role in the American cultural imagination from the beginnings of European settlement in the early nineteenth century to the present. Our relationships with those forests have been shaped by the cultural attitudes of the times, and people have invested in them both moral and spiritual meanings. Author John Knott draws upon such works as Simon Schama's Landscape and Memory and Robert Pogue Harrison's Forests: The Shadow of Civilization in exploring ways in which our Two competing metaphors evolved over time, Knott shows: the forest as howling wilderness, impeding the progress of civilization and in need of subjugation, and the forest as temple or cathedral, worthy of reverence and protection. Imagining the Forest shows the origin and development of both. John R. Knott is Professor of English, University of Michigan. |