The sequoia files : L’arbre merveilleux

The Sequoia Files: the tree of wonder: The cult of the Sierra Nevada giant sequoia, which lasted through the second half of the 19th century, reflected not only its significance as an emblem for American primitivist and nationalist discourse, but also the more popular taste for the marvelous in natu...

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Main Author: François Brunet
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association Française d'Etudes Américaines 2019-05-01
Series:Transatlantica
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/9881
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author François Brunet
author_facet François Brunet
author_sort François Brunet
collection DOAJ
description The Sequoia Files: the tree of wonder: The cult of the Sierra Nevada giant sequoia, which lasted through the second half of the 19th century, reflected not only its significance as an emblem for American primitivist and nationalist discourse, but also the more popular taste for the marvelous in nature, widely associated with California after 1850. This paper reviews a series of descriptions of sequoias published between 1860 and 1890, in order to identify the main components of a highly consistent genre. Centering on the sequoia as a challenge to representation, this literature tends to describe the logic of exploration in purely rhetorical terms, and thus to translate the otherness of the frontier into a space of language play, which seems typical of the Victorian era.
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spelling doaj-art-67fda7bc2779478ebec52b8615158bef2025-01-30T10:45:25ZengAssociation Française d'Etudes AméricainesTransatlantica1765-27662019-05-01210.4000/transatlantica.9881The sequoia files : L’arbre merveilleuxFrançois BrunetThe Sequoia Files: the tree of wonder: The cult of the Sierra Nevada giant sequoia, which lasted through the second half of the 19th century, reflected not only its significance as an emblem for American primitivist and nationalist discourse, but also the more popular taste for the marvelous in nature, widely associated with California after 1850. This paper reviews a series of descriptions of sequoias published between 1860 and 1890, in order to identify the main components of a highly consistent genre. Centering on the sequoia as a challenge to representation, this literature tends to describe the logic of exploration in purely rhetorical terms, and thus to translate the otherness of the frontier into a space of language play, which seems typical of the Victorian era.https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/9881
spellingShingle François Brunet
The sequoia files : L’arbre merveilleux
Transatlantica
title The sequoia files : L’arbre merveilleux
title_full The sequoia files : L’arbre merveilleux
title_fullStr The sequoia files : L’arbre merveilleux
title_full_unstemmed The sequoia files : L’arbre merveilleux
title_short The sequoia files : L’arbre merveilleux
title_sort sequoia files l arbre merveilleux
url https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/9881
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