Westernness: A Meditation

Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism

by Alan Williamson

A first-person meditation on the literary and visual arts of the American West, A Meditation explores how this region has developed its own distinct culture, in literature and painting, from the point of view of someone who has been, at different times in his life, both a westerner and an easterner. An engaging and astute reader and observer, Alan Williamson uses his poetic lens to examine the new connections, notably with the Far East, that have been forged in the West, but also the fear, anxiety, and sense of cultural vacancy that western artists have had to overcome in confronting their new landscape, much as the writers of the American Renaissance did a century earlier. Writing as a displaced easterner with significant western roots, Williamson looks at writers and poets such as Cather, Lawrence, Steinbeck, Jefferes, Silko, and Snyder, as well as artists such as the Yosemite painters, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Wayne Thiebaud, to show how, despite the inflated optimism of many western patriots, the work of these individuals relates to the anxieties suffered by their eastern predecessors. By revealing what he sees as the repetition of the evolution of American literature in the rise of western literature, Williamson provides us with a fresh vantage point from which we can appreciate western literature, art, and culture and simultaneously dismantle the literary war between East and West. A tribute to the author's lifelong engagement with a particular landscape and its writers, Westernness speaks to the general reader who is curious about his or her native place and relationship to it, as well as to scholars in literary and ecocritical studies.

Hardcover

First published March 3, 2006

Reviews

[Elizabeth G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Williamson offers a deeply personal meditation on how the American West forged its own literary and artistic consciousness, viewed through the lens of someone who has belonged to both coasts. His readings of Cather, Steinbeck, and Snyder are nuanced and generous, though occasionally his east/west binary feels more constructed than organic. Where the book truly shines is in his examination of how western artists confronted cultural vacancy and anxiety, echoing the struggles of the American Renaissance a century prior. His poetic sensibility brings fresh eyes to Yosemite painters and O'Keeffe, revealing connections to the Far East that many scholars overlook. A thoughtful, meandering work that rewards patient readers interested in place, displacement, and how landscape shapes artistic vision. More intimate than academic, though scholars of ecocriticism will find much to value.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really amazing book on artists of the west and how landscape effects them. Scholarly and inspiring. Written by my friend Elizabeth's father, a poet, with the thoughtfulness of one. Its a precious book to me.

I have a eucalyptus leaf, as a book mark, in it.

I recommend it to anyone who is guided by that ineffable.