Dark Eden

Professor Miller examines prominent writers and painters of nineteenth-century America who explored the scenery of swamps, jungles, and other wastelands. Through this examination, Miller discusses the changing social realities around the Civil War and the deep-seated personal pressures that the urbanised and technological environment had on these artists.

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An important though little understood aspect of the response of nineteenth-century Americans to nature is the widespread interest in the scenery of swamps, jungles, and other wastelands. Dark Eden focuses on this developing interest in order to redefine cultural values during a transformative period of American history. Professor Miller shows how for many Americans in the period around the Civil War nature came to be regarded less as a source of high moral insight and more as a sanctuary from an ever more urbanised and technological environment. In the swamps and jungles of the South a whole range of writers and artists found a set of strange and exotic images by which to explore changing social realities of the times and the deep-seated personal pressures that accompanied them.