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The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America
by
Leo Marx
For over four decades, Leo Marx's work has focused on the relationship between technology and culture in 19th- and 20th-century America. His research helped to define--and continues to give depth to--the area of American studies concerned with the links between scientific and technological advances, and the way society and culture both determine these links. The Machine in...more
Paperback, 430 pages
Published
February 24th 2000
by Oxford University Press, USA
(first published 1965)
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A lovely book. Leo Marx argues that the pastoral ideal in America -- developed first by Europeans projecting their hopes and fears onto a new landscape, then by native-born Americans examining their growing society -- expresses an ambivalence at the heart of the nation's character.
On the one hand, Marx argues, the pastoral always implies that the peaceful, natural countryside is threatened by the advance of technology and industry. Thus, pastoralism constitutes a form of protest agains...more
On the one hand, Marx argues, the pastoral always implies that the peaceful, natural countryside is threatened by the advance of technology and industry. Thus, pastoralism constitutes a form of protest agains...more
According to Marx (Leo, not Karl) the pastoral — an ideal place balanced between capricious wilderness and urban despair — has been praised in Western arts since Virgil. So compelling was this vision of man's ideal habitat that after Europeans discovered an "empty" wilderness continent notable men (such as Jefferson) wished to create a society based on that which was for so long dreamt of in art. Hence the Jeffersonian plan to create a nation of small landowners, dispersed across the l...more
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An interesting bout of literary criticism that seeks to tease out the thread of emerging industrialization as it threatened the Arcadian dream in 19th and 20th century American novels/art. Launching from Irving's Sleepy Hollow note to notice a train whistle toot off in the distance of Walden, Marx introduces some profound critical insights into how America is imagined.
Marx's chapter on Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST is an amazing exercise in critical extension, as he laces together a maz...more
Marx's chapter on Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST is an amazing exercise in critical extension, as he laces together a maz...more
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America in the 18th was looked on as "the new Eden" for the Western world. Perhaps a little more for the scholar, than the general reader, Leo Marx does excellent work in tracing this vision and its literary impact over the next two centuries. As the Industrial Revolution made its way "across the pond" this pastoral perspective was forced to confront reality on many levels. Oxford University Press reissued this several years ago and reading it has given me: 1) an new perspec...more
Marx's thesis, roughly stated, is that: Americans applied idea's developed about landscape in the old world to the landscape they discovered in the new world. In doing so, the landscape became a "repository of value" (value meaning economic, spiritual, etc.). The main idea about the landscape that travelled with them from Europe was the idea of "pastoralism".
Pastorialism, roughly expressed, represents the yearning by civilised man to occupy the space in between "...more
Pastorialism, roughly expressed, represents the yearning by civilised man to occupy the space in between "...more
Thoroughly enjoyable study from the myth/symbol school of American studies, although I tend to think of the book as a book, as Marx would say, that *anticipates* ecocriticism. [And I cringe every time he uses like terms in the book-I seriously doubt all the authors he describes thought of themselves as prescient...]
Leo Marx is spot on with his analysis of the "culture v. industry" relationship. His narrative glides easily from thought to thought.
I wish more subjects were written on as such.
I wish more subjects were written on as such.
excellent analyses. especially the chapter about the tempest. funny, though, that he doesn't ever acknowledge the fact that certain professions (i.e. architecture, landscape, planning, etc.) directly engage with these issues, and actively *shape* the world. (for example, thomas jefferson's writings on pastoralism and a unique american identity can be seen in a quite different light if you think about the building styles he advocated for our nation's capital...imported directly from france.
Created a paradigm shift in some of my thinking
A classic I've never read until now.
Everytime I re-read this book, I'm impressed with it all over again. Perhaps I'm supposed to launch into the standard critiques of the myth and symbol school here, but I think this is a really useful work and significantly contributed to my understanding of the roles of nature and technology in the American Literary Imaginary.
Details the disconnect between humans and our natural environment as a result of industrialization. This was an english-lit required reading, but it brings insight in an interesting and timely way into the current environmental crisis.
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