Scripting the Wilderness
Keywords:
literature of place, scripting, Don Scheese, wilderness writing, ecocriticism, mental geographiesAbstract
This article analyzes Don Scheese’s essay 'The Inhabited Wilderness' as an exemplar of the literature of place, a genre that grapples with representing environments beyond human experience. The study introduces the concept of 'scripting' to describe how writers like Scheese construct textual montages that blend personal encounters, cultural references, and philosophical inquiries. Unlike traditional mapping or narrating, scripting emphasizes the interplay between internal mental geographies and external physical settings. Harding argues that Scheese’s work invites readers to engage with profound ontological questions while resisting escapist fantasies. The paper explores how scripts function as multi-faceted tools that transform impersonal spaces into humanized places, fostering empathy and intellectual curiosity about distant cultures and landscapes. This interpretative model offers a new critical approach to understanding the literature of place.
(The abstract and keywords were prepared retrospectively for indexing purposes using AI-assisted tools and editorial review, based on the original article. They did not appear in the original publication.)
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