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The Green Man . Literature and the Environment Fall 2006. Who (or what) is the Green Man?. Pagan myth--nature diety Dionysus Adonis The Spirit of Nature. . . vs. Mother Nature A symbol of Fertility The mysterious “Man in the Trees”. Shelley’s Adonis.
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The Green Man Literature and the Environment Fall 2006
Who (or what) is the Green Man? • Pagan myth--nature diety • Dionysus • Adonis • The Spirit of Nature. . . vs. Mother Nature • A symbol of Fertility • The mysterious “Man in the Trees”
Shelley’s Adonis He is made one with Nature: there is heard His voice in all her music, from the moan Of thunder, to the song of nights’s sweet bird; He is a presence to be felt and known. In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, Spreading itself where’er that Power may move Which has withdrawn his being to its own; Which wields the world with never-wearied love Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.
Green Man Archetypes Four basic types of Green Men have been found decorating churches and cathedral: • Foliate Heads • Spewing Heads • Blood Sucker Heads • Jack in the Green Heads
The Foliate Head
The Spewing (or Uttering) Head
The Bloodsucker Heads
Green Man: A Partial Bibliography History, Criticism, Illustration: Anderson, William. Green Man The Archetype of our Oneness with the Earth. Harpercollins, 1990. Basford, Kathleen. The Green Man. D.S. Brewer, 2004. Fowles, John. “The Green Man.” On Nature. Ed. Daniel Halpern. North Point Press, 1982. Harding, Mike. The Little Book of the Green Man. Aurum Press, 1998. “King Lear as the Green Man." The Explicator, Vol. 60.2, from 2002. Matthews, John. The Quest for the Green Man. Quest Books, 2001. Literature: Datlow, Ellen. Green Man Anthology: Tales from the Mythic Forest Poets. Puffin, 2004 Donlan, John. Green Man (poems). Ronsdale Press. 1999. Haley, Gail E. “The Green Man” (short story). Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Treece, Henry. The Green Man (novel). Putnam’s, 1966. [Retelling of the story from Saxo Grammaticus.]