Bad Land pastoralism in Great Plains fiction / Matthew J.C. Cella ; foreword by Wayne Franklin.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-225) and index.

Introduction: Biocultural change and literary pastoralism in Great Plains fiction -- 1. (Un)settling the Indian wilderness: Tribal pastoralism in Cooper's "The Prairie" and Welch's "Fools crow" -- 2. Pastoralism and enclosure: Marriage and illegitimate children on the range-farm frontier in Eaton's "Cattle" and Richter's "Sea of grass" -- 3. Harmonious fields and wild prairies: Transcendental pastoralism in Willa Cather's Nebraska novels -- 4. Patches of green and fields of dust: Dust Bowl pastoralism in Olsen's "Yonnondio" and Manfred's "The golden bowl" -- 5. Healing the wounds of history: Buffalo commons pastoralism in Proulx's "That old ace in the hole" and King's "Truth and bright water" -- Epilogue: Pastoral art and the beautiful.

Print version record.

At the core of this nuanced book is the question that ecocritics have been debating for decades: what is the relationship between aesthetics and activism, between art and community? By using a pastoral lens to examine ten fictional narratives that chronicle the dialogue between human culture and nonhuman nature on the Great Plains, Matthew Cella explores literary treatments of a succession of abrupt cultural transitions from the Euroamerican conquest of the "Indian wilderness" in the nineteenth century to the Buffalo Commons phenomenon in the twentieth. By charting the shifting meaning of land.

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