Can I read Uneven land : nature and agriculture in American writing on EtoBox?

Uneven land : nature and agriculture in American writing by Sarver, Stephanie L., 1955- is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is Uneven land : nature and agriculture in American writing about?

Uneven Land explores the ambiguous conceptual position of agriculture and nature in American literature during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Hamlin Garland, Frank Norris, William Ellsworth Smythe, and Liberty Hyde Bailey, Stephanie L. Sarver reveals a range of views about agriculture, its value to the individual, and its relationship to nature. Sarver proposes that agricultural practices require a relationship with nature that is simultaneously material and spiritual as well as economic and social. Emerson interprets the relationship between the farmer and nature in several ways, confirming that the farmer enjoys a privileged connection to nature. Garland and Bailey continue in Emersons tradition but present the farmers relationship to nature as always compromised by the commercial character of farming. In contrast, Norris and Smythe minimize the individual spiritual experiences of nature in farming. They abstract agrarian land, suggesting that the farm is a stage on which human dramas are enacted. Out of this study emerges a complex picture of Americas uncertain relationship with nature and agriculture.

Author

Sarver, Stephanie L., 1955-

Publisher

Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press

Published

1999

Language

EN

ISBN

9780803242524

Subjects

Literary Fiction, History, Nature