In the blue humanities reading, the author showcased how Western attitudes towards the sea/ocean changed over time from disinterest and fear to one of fascination and awe. This mimics the attitudes that individuals held towards the “wilderness” as the cultural values associated with both these natural spaces changed to suit the desires of a western audience. I believe that the coast and sea shore itself became a kind of frontier myth for those living in the 19th century. In both the terrestrial and aquatic frontier myth, people looked back to these places as a romanticized version of the past. In the reading, the author states that, “pristine nature now in short supply in the industrialized heartlands, found a refuge in the oceans…Simultaneously, the sublime, previously associated with mountains and forests, came to be associated with the wild water.” In this quote, the author is mentioning how people are once again searching for a space that is untouched/unaltered by humans which is highlighted by the addition of the words ‘industrialized heartlands’. This phrasing positions the sea as something that people saw separate from them and because of their separation, there was a type of sacredness to it, which matches the sacredness that people felt towards national parks. The use of the phrase ‘wild water’ is interesting as well because the water is being personified and altered to fit this idea of untouched wilderness even though people had utilized the open ocean and other bodies of water for hundreds of years.

Humanities: The Journal of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Web. 2013