Settlers represented colonized land as edenic European gardens in ‘white pastoral’ writing

Evidence

J. M. Coetzee, the noted and now notably alienated South African Nobel novelist, insightfully identified a form of representation among European settlers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries found especially in “white writing.” Coetzee characterizes this mode of representation as “white pastoral.” “White pastoral” is the representation of an idyllic, edenic landscape, the aesthetic articulation of European gardens if not of little England itself being lost to industrialization, quite at odds with the harshness of the actual environment. White pastoral resonates with theological significance too, biblical meaning inscribed on the landscape itself. Thus Cape Town’s landmark Table Mountain, shrouded by the southeasterly table cloth, is the imagined site of the Last Supper, biblically bookended on each side by magisterial mountainous peaks aptly named Devil’s Peak and the Twelve Apostles respectively. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1403

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Coetzee’s ‘white pastoral’ concept as a settler representational mode.
• CANDY: Table Mountain as imagined Last Supper site between Devil’s Peak and the Twelve Apostles is a vivid, tweetable detail.
• XREF: connects to: White pastoral literature imposed Edenic biblical meaning onto harsh colonial landscapes — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1403; Botanical gardens remade colonial landscapes into idealized European countryside — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1404; Settlers imposed idyllic biblical landscapes onto harsh colonial territory (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Settlers imposed idyllic biblical landscapes onto harsh colonial territory #corroborates (0.98)
• White pastoral literature imposed Edenic biblical meaning onto harsh colonial landscapes #corroborates (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1403
• Botanical gardens remade colonial landscapes into idealized European countryside #expands (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1404