Enchanted Forests

Boria Sax teaches at Sing Sing prison and online in the graduate literature programme at Mercy University. He has published many books, which have won awards and been translated into numerous languages. His most recent is Avian Illuminations: A Cultural History of Birds (Reaktion, 2021).

"[A] fascinating meander through the rich woodlands of literature and visual art. Sax shows that forest tales reveal how we imagine time . . . [and] highlights the contradictory nature of mythic forests: places of both Edenic innocence and terrifying chaos." - David Haskell, Scientific American"[Boria Sax’s] cultural history of forests from prehistory to today – inspired by his owning a forest in New York State – draws on writers and artists including Virgil, Dante, the Brothers Grimm, the Hudson River painters and Latin American folklorists." - Andrew Robinson, Nature"Sax’s Enchanted Forests spurs the imagination . . . This engaging, scholarly volume summarizes how, throughout history, human beings have conceptualized and portrayed forests in written and visual art. . . . This rich and accessible book considers an astonishing array of ideas. . . . Enchanted Forests is a brilliant introduction to the art and literature of the forest, examining how people conceive of the wilderness beyond the edges of civilization." - Foreword Reviews"We generally take forests for granted, but Boria Sax, in this elegant history, reveals their glory and importance. When we look at our devastation of forests throughout the world, and how ignorant we are about the value of trees, it is a crime that we don't know more about their existence. Sax's graceful analysis guides us through all kinds of enchanted forests throughout history that need more respect than they have received." - Jack Zipes, Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota"Put on your hiking boots and prepare for an adrenaline-fueled journey around the world with Boria Sax as your expert guide. Make stops with Gilgamesh at the Cedar Forest of Lebanon, with Dante as he enters a dark forest, and with Joseph Conrad’s Marlow as he navigates his way down a river to the Congo. Behold Yggdrasil of Nordic mythologies, the Cosmic Tree that grows in Siberia, or the Waq Waq tree in medieval Arab belief systems. Beauty and wisdom flash out at us on every page of this captivating volume." - Maria Tatar, author of The Heroine with 1,001 Faces"Enchanted Forests is a book that will take the reader through the deep, dark woods and yet enlighten, entertain and enthral. Boria Sax has brought together knowledge from many fields and the ease with which he moves between them shows his intense engagement with the subject. It is a must-read for all those who love forests." - Sadhana Naithani, Jawaharlal Nehru University"This is an immensely rich cultural history of woodlands and covers a huge range of subjects, which makes it constantly fascinating and stimulating. Whether writing about folklore, cathedrals, contemporary environmental threats, art history or ever-changing, but often recurring, human attitudes to wilderness, Sax is both enlightening and a provoker of serious reflection . . . Enchanted Forests is full of insights and for me has produced many ‘wow’ moments . . . I will be treasuring this book and reading it again. The past and future of forests being such a vital part of our cultural and actual landscape, this has felt like an urgent read." - Ian Tattum, The Pilgrim

• Introduction: Forests and Memory1 Wood and Leaves2 The World Tree3 Mythic Beings4 Conquest of the Woods5 The Royal Hunt6 The Forest and Death7 Lord of the Forest8 Lady of the Forest9 The Classical, Rococo and Gothic Woods10 The Primeval Forest11 The Forest of Dreams12 The Law of the Jungle13 The Man with the Big Axe14 The Politics of Trees15 The River in the ForestEpilogueTimeline of Forests in CultureReferencesFurther ReadingAcknowledgementsPhoto AcknowledgementsIndex