The Image and Influence of the Oklahoma Prairie in Washington Irving's Tour of the West (Studies in American Literature, 67)

Steele (English, U. of Central Oklahoma) analyzes American writer Irving's A Tour of the Prairies, which was based on the personal journals he kept daily on an 1832 journey through was then Indian country with another American and two European writers. She argues that his image of the plains is more than a well-crafted metaphor romantically portraying progress and expansion within the framework of The Frontier. Rather, she finds it to be a self-sufficient, linguistic catalyst revealing the Oklahoma environment of the time interacting with him, an effect divorced from the frontier myth. She considers his expectations and experiences, a new image, the fulfillment of the image and the self, and the beauty and significance of the work. The text is double spaced. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)