Our relationship with trees is a lengthy, complex one: human beings have worshiped trees, lived in them and felled them. For many, though, some of our first memories may well be of climbing them.
Exploring how tree climbers have been represented in literature and art in Europe and North America, The Tree Climbing Cure unpacks the curative value of tree climbing, examining when and why tree climbers climb, and what tree climbing can do for (and say about) the climber’s mental health and wellbeing.
Bringing together research into poetry, novels, and paintings, with the science of wellbeing and mental health, this book engages with myth, folklore, psychology and storytelling, to examine the close relationship between tree climbing and imagination. It also questions some longstanding, problematic gendered injunctions about women climbing trees.
Discussing, among others, the literary works of Margaret Atwood; Italo Calvino; Seamus Heaney; Angela Carter, and Kiran Desai, as well as work by artists such as Peter Doig; Paula Rego; and Goya, this book stands out as an almost encyclopaedic examination of cultural representations of this restorative pastime.
- ISBN10 1350327298
- ISBN13 9781350327290
- Publish Date 12 January 2023
- Publish Status Forthcoming
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 240
- Language English