The Green Man

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The Green Man
Literature and the Environment Fall 2006
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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

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Shelleys 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 nightss sweet bird
• He is a presence to be felt and known.
• In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,
• Spreading itself whereer 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• Which has withdrawn his being to its own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.

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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

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• The
• Foliate
• Head

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• The
• Spewing
• (or Uttering)
• Head

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• The
• Bloodsucker
• Heads

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Jack in the Green
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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).  Putnams, 1966.  Retelling of the
story from Saxo Grammaticus.