Merryland (1740) – Thomas Stretzer
Edition shown: NY: Robin Hood House (1932)

Her valleys are like Eden, her hills like Lebanon, she is a paradise of pleasure and a garden of delight

This poetic praise by the pseudonymous Thomas Stretzer may sound like any other earth-troping colonization of womanhood similar to John Donne’s well-known characterization of his mistress; Oh “my America, my new-found-land!” Those familiar with Merryland (published in 1740) and indeed, with a whole tradition of what Darby Lewes has dubbed somatopias (texts composed of, or designed for the body), will recognize in these words the embarrassingly facile puns of female landscaping metaphors that treat woman as so much ground to till, as so much earth to exploit. Certainly, Stretzer’s Merryland—both composed of and designed for bodies—offers up a fertile pornocopia for male corporeal pleasures based on exposed, accessible female body parts. —http://www.specmind.com/vixen/geography_of_desire.htm [Sept 2005]