Title: Cormac McCarthy and the writing of American spaces /
Authors: Estes, Andrew Keller.
Publisher: Rodopi,
Year: 2013
Subjects: McCarthy, Cormac, Criticism and interpretation.; Landscapes in literature.; National characteristics, American, in literature.
Abstract: "In Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces Andrew Estes examines ideas about the land as they emerge in the later fiction of this important contemporary author. McCarthy's texts are shown to be part of larger narratives about American environments. Against the backdrop of the emerging discipline of environmental criticism, Estes investigates the way space has been constructed in U.S. American writing. Cormac McCarthy is found to be heir to diametrically opposed concepts of space: as something Americans embraced as either overwhelmingly positive and reinvigorating or as rather negative and threatening. McCarthy's texts both replicate this binary thinking about American environments and challenge readers to reconceive traditional ways of seeing space. Breaking new ground as to how literary landscapes and spaces are critically assessed this study seeks to examine the many detailed descriptions of the physical world in McCarthy on their own terms. Adding to so-called 'second wave' environmental criticism, it reaches beyond an earlier, limited understanding of the environment as 'nature' to consider both natural landscapes and built environments. Chapter one discusses the field of environmental criticism in reference to McCarthy while chapter two offers a brief narrative of conceptions of space in the U.S. Chapter three highlights trends in McCarthy criticism. Chapters four through eight provide close readings of McCarthy's later novels, from Blood Meridian to The Road."--Publisher's website.
Contents: Introduction -- Environmental Criticism and Cormac McCarthy -- Environmental Criticism/Ecocriticism -- Machine/Garden -- Nature/Culture -- Biocentrism/Anthropocentrism -- Space/Place -- Wilderness/Civilization -- A Debate in American Literature: The Nature of U.S. Spaces -- Columbus and the Edenic Trend -- From the Best of Places to the Worst of Places -- Vespucci and the Demonic Trend -- "The Greatest Fact": Buffon, De Pauw and Raynal -- The Puritans -- Hawthorne -- Later Manifestations of the Positive View: Crèvecoeur -- Jefferson: "The Cultivators of the Earth Are the Most Virtuous Citizens" -- Emerson -- Frederick Jackson Turner -- The Dialectic of American Spaces -- McCarthy Criticism -- McCarthy as Author: Beginnings of Secondary Literature -- Close Readings of Important Secondary Literature -- Blood Meridian -- The Environment in Blood Meridian -- Judge Holden's View -- The Consequences of Judge Holden's View: A Changing Environment -- Optical Democracy -- All the Pretty Horses -- From the World of Blood Meridian to That of All the Pretty Horses -- Space According to the Edenic Trend -- Two Pictures of Horses: A Developing Notion of Wilderness -- Space According to the Demonic Trend -- Evil in Texas Versus Evil in Mexico -- A Definition of Country in McCarthy -- A New Way Forward -- The Crossing -- Borders -- New Country -- Language and the Land -- The Trinity Test -- No Country for Old Men -- The Road -- Apocalypse in American Literature -- Environmental Criticism and (Post-)Apocalypse -- A Close Reading of The Road: Ideas of the Natural and Technology -- Rock City -- The End of The Road: Biocentric Maps -- Conclusion.