Oooh thats lovely
Thinking about this perspective on wilderness some more, I guess what you are really describing is a very human fear of the 'unknown' or 'unfamiliar', perhaps moreso than wilderness...or is that a central part of what wilderness means...to be bewildered perhaps? I hosted 4 kalahari bushman here in the UK earlier this year, and they were certainly more afraid of the urban world than the Kalahari desert, and of course with good reason...they were far more vulnerable here, just as we are in their home
.Anyway, a few of my notes slung together about wilderness for those interested...
One of the most influential and pervasive constructs of wilderness was born out of the romantic notions of the sublime. Notions of the sublime derived from the theories of Burke and Kant. According to Burke and Kant natural landscapes were the places where God was most likely to be encountered (Cronon, 1995). A second cultural construct, which helped turn wilderness into a quasi-religious icon, derives from the romantic attraction to primitivism'. This European ideal of the primitive was embodied in North America through the myth of the frontier, which represented not only the edge of civilisation, but also the process by which Europeans shed the trappings of civilisation:
Wilderness begins to enter into literary use (in association with low-tech camping), in the 1870s, such as John Keast Lords publication At home in the wilderness - what to do there and how to do it: a handbook for travellers and emigrants (1876). However use of the word is much older, with uses recorded in the fourteenth century when John Wycliff inspired the first English translation of the Latin Bible (Nash, 1982:2). Through common biblical usage, wilderness has conventionally come to denote areas of treeless expanse, such as a desert. In 1755 Samuel Johnson in his Dictionary of the English language, defined wilderness as a desert: a tract of solitude and savageness (Nash, 1982:3). Moreover, wilderness could also be viewed as a medium through which one could experience the sublime and draw close to God. Biblical passages of the Old Testament refer to revelations in the wilderness; For example, Moses received the Ten Commandments deep in the wilderness, and moreover wilderness served as place for being tested and purged of immorality. The Deists of the seventeenth and eighteenth century also shared such ideas, which by the eighteenth century had enabled a complete turn around in the way in which wilderness was comprehended. At this time, wilderness had also gained popularity with the Romantics, who preferred the wild in reaction to the effects of increased urbanisation during the Industrial Revolution. Primitivism was one of the more significant ideas of the Romantic and Enlightenment era (Nash, 1982; Horrigan 1988; Boas & Lovejoy, 1935). And it is this returning popularity of wilderness paralleled by a growing dissatisfaction with civilised society that can be traced through to today.
Nash (1982) describes the etymology of wilderness; tracing its root words to the Teutonic and Norse languages. The root appears to have been will, with a descriptive meaning of self-willed, wilful or uncontrollable (Nash, 1982; Haila, 1997). Willed became wild to denote someone out of control, ungoverned or unruly. The term was eventually extended to life forms other than human and thus the Old English deor (animal) was prefixed with wild in reference to undomesticated creatures. Wildeor, then contracted to wilder, gave rise to wilden and finally wilderness, thus wild-deor-ness denotes the place of wild beasts (Nash, 1982:2; Wilderness. The Collins English Dictionary, 2000). Nash further postulates that the more accurate meaning of wilderness as forested land can be validated by means of its restriction to languages of northern Europe, where uncultivated lands were characterised by woods. However modern interpretation has been extended to include anywhere that produces feelings of bewilderment and disorientation and may therefore refer to any thing or place considered chaotic and unruly, or that which is not controllable by humans, which can also be applied to man-made and urban environments (Nash, 1982).
Wilderness can perhaps be considered the antithesis of nature. Duel visions of nature have existed since classical antiquity. In Classical and Medieval Europe nature was commonly depicted as an Edenic garden, fruitful and bountiful; whereas wilderness, in contrast, is savage, stark and hostile to man. Nature may represent plenty, yet wilderness is commonly associated with dearth, desolation and deprivation; nature supports life whereas wilderness threatens it. The pre-modern world was infused with anthropomorphic meaning of a spiritual, mythic and theistic kind. The wilderness was envisaged as a place full of dangerous beasts, monsters and spirits; many, like Pan, were terrifying, ravaging women and steeling their children. They were perceived as cohorts of the devil in folk belief and wilderness permeated into the western mind as repugnant and dangerous (Nash, 1982). Nash (1982) suggests that the most iconic representation of this time is symbolised by the mythical semi-human Wild Man. Tales of the Wildman varied, but Mobley (1997) suggest three core representations (1) The hairy man (2) the subhuman barbarians or wild races; and (3) the warrior who temporarily is transformed into a wild man while in a state of martial rage (Mobley, 1997). The Wildman was characterised in literature and classical Northern European traditions, by figures such as the German Wood Wives, Wild Folk, Forest Folk or Moss Folk; in Sweden, Odin the Wild Huntsman and in England Puck, the spirit of the woods and of course Pan, from where we drive the word panic (Nash, 1982). The figure of the Wild Man conjures both myth and mystery and is utilised throughout history to connote a spectrum of traits, which are not considered wholly human, nor irreversibly wild/ savage. The Wildman, alongside other wild/human hybrid figures, such as feral children, and noble savages, challenged the limits of what it meant to be human (Horrigan, 1988).
During the late medieval period the more romantic notion of wild man-as-hero began to enter the traditions and literature, shedding a more positive light on this creature from the wilderness. The Wild Mans constant contact with wilderness had led him to be imbued with other more desirable traits, such as strength, hardiness, and sexual prowess, yet also innocence and nobility; when captured and received back into civilisation, he made the best knights, although stories often also told of a reversal knights who, having lost their lady, or some other such tragedy, rebuke civilised society and take to the wilderness to regain strength and healing, eventually returning with greater powers (Boas, 1948; Nash, 1983; Horrigan, 1988). This new noble Wild Man theme, which started to gain popularity in the early 1500s, directly reflected the kernel of another emerging theme of this time; an increasing belief that civil mans reversion to a primitive life-style would engender a more virtuous and harmonious existence, free from the burdens and immorality of civilised life, characterised by the beliefs of primitivism. Classic stereotypes, such as these, occupied uneasy spaces between categories of human/ animal and nature/culture and the tensions these stereotyped figures have evoked since antiquity held particular fascination for Europeans during the Enlightenment era, as Enlightenment philosophers became increasingly concerned to answer the central question of the time What is Man? (Horrigan 1988: 51).
As the 20th century approached, the term Wilderness exhibits a strong resonance with the American frontier condition and the atmospheric nature writers and philosophers within a largely romantic American literary tradition that can be traced back to Rousseau. It truly emerged with the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson in the early nineteenth century, and was followed by writers such as Henry David Thoreau and John Muir.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), followed most notably by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), John Burroughs and John Muir was a pioneer of this view. An American philosopher, essayist, and poet, Emerson was best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. Emerson formulated and inspired the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. Followed by Thoreaus later reflections on nature and simple living in Walden, this in turn influenced Muir and represents the emergence of the early thoughts and formulation of wilderness preservation and hence conservation. In combination with other key influential Anglo-American naturalists, philosophers and nature writers of the late 19th Century such as Burroughs, John Jeffries and Achie Belanie (Grey Owl), the practical and applied experiences of these men in nature influenced a new genre of environmental thought, nature observation and wilderness appreciation, from which the seeds of bushcraft culminated in the writings of Ernest Thompson Seton, a pivotal figure who combined much of his forerunners literary elegance with a deep interest in and passion for American Indigenous populations and pioneered some of the first youth movements; most notably his influence on Lord Baden-Powell and the Boy Scouts.
I hope I haven't killed this thread, as I seem to do that, and its really interesting to hear peoples personal feelings about wilderness rather than attemting broad or official definitions!
Lisa Fenton
