MDMD (17) -- ch. 50 "ancient Revenge"?

[Tim Thomas]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
  A place of wild beasts,
> a lawless place beyond the behavioral pale and simultaneouly a
> place next described as without restriction on the glory of the sun.
> 

The direction and progression of the Line, mimics the movement west of
settlement. From the domesticated into Wilderness - and M&D's seasonal
movement back and forth along the Line speaks of the tensions between
these two concepts. The Wild and the Holy are fundamental to European
(Christian) attitudes to landscape (check out Simon Schama's "Landscape
and Memory") and we see them play out against each other in the european
colonization of america and indeed in Mason and Dixon. For some the
'wilderness' was eden, for some it was, well, Wild and had to be
domesticated, appropriated and brought within - for the native
inhabitants it was something else altogether.

The Schama book is relevant also to the comment on pg 487 "Forms of the
Land, the flow of water....all are text,- to be attended to,
manipulated, read, rememberer'd."
For this is the central thesis of the book- with its sections 'Wood',
'Water', 'Rock' etc. Schama seeks to attend to, read and remember our
beliefs about 'nature'. And as he says "Before it can ever be a repose
for the senses, landscape is the work of the mind. Its scenery is built
up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock." His book is
just one among many in a growing movement that treats landscape as text.

Tim (a lurker)