« The desert says nothing » : Elizabeth Temple et Edward Abbey, prophètes de la dégénérescence environnementale dans The Pioneers et Desert Solitaire

Abstract

Nearly a hundred and fifty years separate the publication of The Pioneers, the first novel of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales in 1823, from Desert Solitaire, published by Edward Abbey in 1968. These two texts propose a representation of the evolution of the american wilderness. The time distance that separates them offers a panoramic vision of the metamorphosis of this area, both in terms of industrial destruction and of new forms of literary representations. This article offers to study the misgeneration of this territory and the transformation of its depiction.

Keywords

• American literature
• deforestation
• ecocriticism
• ecoterrorism
• environmentalism
• nature