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The Wilderness Condition & The Romantic Wilderness

Readings:

Nash: Chapters 2 & 3

William Wordsworth, A Complete Guide to the English Lakes, beginning through “Windemere” (1835)  (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

James Fenimore Cooper, The Deerslayer, Ch. 1 (1841)

Write a paragraph in response to each of the following questions. Be sure to indicate the assignment number and your name at the top of your paper (or the TA will have trouble giving you credit).

1. How does the anthropological research on pre-Columbian American cultures described in Charles Mann’s “1491” alter/inform Nash’s presentation of “the wilderness condition.”

2. Describe how taming/domesticating wilderness came to be seen as a moral imperative for European Americans in the 17th and 18th centuries.

3. Trace how 19th century Romanticism shifted how people thought of wilderness.

4. How is this change represented in the works of Wordsworth, Cooper, Cole, and Beethoven?