Wolves and the Wolf Myth in American Literature

by S.K. Robisch

The wolf is one of the most widely distributed canid species, historically ranging throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere. For millennia, it has also been one of the most pervasive images in human mythology, art, and psychology. Wolves and the Wolf Myth in American Literature examines the wolf’s importance as a figure in literature from the perspectives of both the animal’s physical reality and the ways in which writers imagine and portray it. Author S. K. Robisch examines more than two hundred texts written in North America about wolves or including them as central figures. From this foundation, he demonstrates the wolf’s role as an archetype in the collective unconscious, its importance in our national culture, and its ecological value. Robisch takes a multidisciplinary approach to his study, employing a broad range of myths and legends from around the world; symbology; classic and popular literature; films; the work of scientists in a number of disciplines; human psychology; and field work conducted by himself and others. By combining the fundamentals of scientific study with close readings of wide-ranging literary texts, Robisch astutely analyzes the correlation between actual, living wolves and their representation on the page and in the human mind. He also considers the relationship between literary art and the natural world, and argues for a new approach to literary study, an ecocriticism that moves beyond anthropocentrism to examine the complicated relationship between humans and nature.

Genres: Literary Criticism, Wolves, Nature

512 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2009

Reviews

[Joe Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book by a brilliant scholar. In a time when so much writing in the humanities (especially environmental literature) is marked by the dense, inaccessible language of theory, Robisch's book is refreshingly of the Earth. His subject is the wolf as it has been portrayed in science and literature, as it functions in Western mythology, and--with the caveat that there are indeed limits to our knowledge on the subject--of the wolf qua wolf. This book is a model of ecocriticism that, if followed, could help bring to fruition the discipline's goal of contributing to an environmentalist paradigm shift. In other words, in learning to see through the lens of this book, we come away with new appreciation of the wolf and also of the greater world in which the wolf lives, and in which we live.

[Elizabeth Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is flat-out brilliant. Beautifully written, filled with ideas, information, knowledge, insights--I couldn't put it down. This is the alhpa book of wolf books, and it raises the study of animals and our relationship with them to a new level of understanding. I love this book so much that I've bought over a dozen copies to give out as birthday and Christmas presents, and I suspect I'll be buying more. I cannot recall the last time I was so powerfully effected by a work of non-fiction.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author has an amazing analysis of wolves in literature and how literature has played a major part in our misunderstanding of wolves. It is partly a difficult read because the author is an academic and his language can be difficult to follow. But I stayed with him throughout the book and it was well worth reading it’s entirety as he has moments of great clarity and genius.