Based on the author's dissertation (doctoral)--Baylor University, 2006. Includes bibliographical references (pages 358-366) and index.
Contents:
Introduction -- An American Venus and virgin: the sacramental dynamic of the Midwestern land -- Protestantism, literalism, and the sacramental body of the Midwest -- Winesburg under the sway of "New Englanders' gods": Puritanism, industrialism, materialism, and the Midwestern fall -- "The fields fell into the forms of women": sexual and gendered associations of the land in Horses and men -- Laughing at "fake talk": the guttural silence of the Midwestern land in Dark laughter -- Fleshly but beyond just flesh": the salvific sacramental meaning of the land in Poor white and Beyond desire -- "I'm a good Catholic, but I could get along with caring for trees": nature and sacramental community in Willa Cather's O Pioneers! and My Antonia -- "A story of the West, after all": the sacramental and Midwestern pastoral subtext of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The great Gatsby -- The return to "hard, natural things": from pastoral delusion to rock-bottom reality in Ruth Suckow's The folks -- Sacramentalism in a postmodern farm novel: Ginny Smith's spiritual journey in Jane Smiley's A thousand acres -- Epilogue.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.