The Lay of the Land: Metaphor As Experience and History in American Life and Letters

Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: Although this has become something of a standard text in American Studies departments, the work is far overrated. It relies heavily on the myth-symbol-image work of Henry Nash Smith and Leo Marx. Beyond that, Kolodny has little to say that is original. Her metaphor of nation-building as land-rape is both simplistic and overdrawn. I cannot recommend this book to anyone. It is work of imagination that masquerades as scholarship.