Thoreau's Sense of Place: Essays in American Environmental Writing (American Land & Life) PDF
Preview Thoreau's Sense of Place: Essays in American Environmental Writing (American Land & Life)
Thoreau’s Sense of Place (cid:1) The American Land and Life Series Edited by Wayne Franklin Thoreau’s Sense of Place (cid:1) Essays in American Environmental Writing richard j. schneider Edited by Forewordby LawrenceBuell university of iowa press IowaCity UniversityofIowaPress,IowaCity52242 Copyright(cid:1)2000bytheUniversityofIowaPress Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica http://www.uiowa.edu/(cid:1)uipress Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedorusedinanyform orbyanymeans,electronicormechanical,includingphotocopying andrecording,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublisher. Allreasonablestepshavebeentakentocontactcopyrightholders ofmaterialusedinthisbook.Thepublisherwouldbepleasedto makesuitablearrangementswithanywhomithasnotbeenpossible toreach. Thepublicationofthisbookwasgenerouslysupportedbythe UniversityofIowaFoundation. Printedonacid-freepaper LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Thoreau’ssenseofplace:essaysinAmericanenvironmentalwriting/ editedbyRichardJ.Schneider;forewordbyLawrenceBuell. p. cm.—(TheAmericanlandandlifeseries) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. isbn0-87745-708-5,isbn0-87745-720-4(pbk.) 1. Thoreau,HenryDavid,1817–1862—Knowledge—Natural History. 2. Thoreau,HenryDavid,1817–1862—Viewson environmentalprotection. 3. Environmentalprotection— UnitedStates—History. 4. Thoreau,HenryDavid,1817– 1862—Influence. 5. Americanliterature—Historyand criticism. 6. Naturalhistory—UnitedStates—History. 7. Environmentalprotectioninliterature. 8. Place(Phi- losophy)inliterature. 9. Natureinliterature. 10. Setting (Literature). I. Schneider,RichardJ. II. Series. ps3057.n3t46 2000 818(cid:2).309—dc21 99-058112 00 01 02 03 04 c 5 4 3 2 1 00 01 02 03 04 p 5 4 3 2 1 contents Acknowledgments vii Foreword ix LawrenceBuell Introduction 1 i. relating to place: “between me and it” BelievinginNature: WildernessandWildnessinThoreauvianScience 15 LauraDassowWalls Thoreau’sTranscendentalEcocentrism 28 WilliamRossi ‘‘ClimateDoesThusReactonMan’’: WildnessandGeographicDeterminisminThoreau’s‘‘Walking’’ 44 RichardJ.Schneider ‘‘InSearchofaMoreHumanNature’’: WendellBerry’sRevisionofThoreau’sExperiment 61 TedOlson Water-Signs:PlaceandMetaphorinDillardandThoreau 70 JamesA.Papa,Jr. ii. imaging place: finding a discourse to match discovery TheWrittenWorld: PlaceandHistoryinThoreau’s‘‘AWalktoWachusett’’ 83 DavidM.Robinson Thoreau,ThomasCole,andAsherDurand: ComposingtheAmericanLandscape 93 IsaiahSmithson ReadingHome: Thoreau,Literature,andthePhenomenonofInhabitation 115 PeterBlakemore SeeingtheWestSideofAnyMountain: ThoreauandContemporaryEcologicalPoetry 133 J.ScottBryson iii. socially constructing place: culture and nature TenWaysofSeeingLandscapesinWaldenandBeyond 149 JamesG.McGrath SaunteringintheIndustrialWilderness 165 BernardW.Quetchenbach Walden,RuralHours,andtheDilemmaofRepresentation 179 RochelleJohnson WordsworthandThoreau:TwoVersionsofPastoral 194 GregGarrard Humanityas‘‘APartandParcelofNature’’: AComparativeStudyofThoreau’sandTaoistConceptsofNature 207 AiminCheng iv. saving place: writing as appropriation or preservation of nature SpeakingforNature: Thoreauandthe‘‘Problem’’of‘‘NatureWriting’’ 223 NancyCraigSimmons Depopulation,Deforestation,andtheActualWaldenPond 235 RobertSattelmeyer SkirtingLowell: TheExceptionalWorkofNaturein AWeekontheConcordandMerrimackRivers 244 StephenGermic RustlingThoreau’sCattle:WildnessandDomesticityin‘‘Walking’’ 254 Barbara‘‘Barney’’Nelson CounterFrictions: WritingandActivismintheWorkofAbbeyandThoreau 266 SusanM.Lucas Contributors 281 WorksCited 285 Index 301 vi Contents acknowledgments Thanksaredueto Lawrence Buell,whogavemeencouragementinde- velopingthisbookandwhoputmeintouchwithWayneFranklin,editor of the American Land and Life series,to whom thanks arealsoduefor hiswisdomandpersistence,whichgavefocustotheproject.TheInter- netlistservesprovidedbyboththeThoreauSocietyandtheAssociation for the Study of Literature and the Environment did much to facilitate choosing and organizing the contributors to the project. Thanks to all inthosetwoorganizationswhocontributedeitheressaysorsuggestions. ThecompilationofthebookwasfacilitatedbyOliviaCoiloftheWart- burg College Humanities Office and her staff of reliable students. The extra time needed to coordinate a large project such as this was made possiblethroughthereleasetimeprovidedbytheSlifeProfessorshipin theHumanitiesatWartburgCollege.Finally,Iowethanks,asalways,to my wife,Mary,andtomy children,Eric,Heidi,andRick,fortheiron- goingpersonalsupport. vii foreword Lawrence Buell These essays teach a lesson Henry David Thoreau knew but even good teachersoftenforget:theenlightenmentthatcomeswithdiscoverywor- thyofthenamemeanscomplicationmoreoftenthanconsensus. During the past decade, literary scholarship has discovered the en- vironmental(ist) Thoreau. This dimension of his life and work had for more than a century strongly attracted creative writers and thinkersof environmentalistpersuasion,butuntilquiterecentlyacademicThoreau- viansofliterarybenttookrelativelylittleinterestinit.Allwhohavebe- comesoshouldtakesatisfactioninthefactthatthechieffruittodateof this new attention to the green Thoreau has been a vigorous question- raising, not a laying of matters to rest. Was transcendentalism a road- blocktoThoreau’snaturalhistoryinterests,ordiditinspirethem?What did Thoreau know of nineteenth-century life science—or rather sci- ences, plural, for this was a field in a state of intense ferment. To what extent was Thoreau biocentric, to what extent anthropocentric? Did Thoreau’scommitmenttonature,existentiallyandasanobjectofstudy, interferewithhisdevelopmentasawriterorquickenit?Theseareonly a few of the questions explored by the new environmentally valenced inquiryintoThoreau’slifeandwriting,andsmallwonderthatindividual scholars disagree about them. They are big issues, and Thoreau was a complexandirrepressiblycontrarianthinker. Amongthecontestedissuesofthiskind,thematterofThoreau’ssense ofplaceloomsupasespeciallyknotty,partlybecausetheconceptofplace itself is luminous but indeterminate (it can be relatively large or small, relativelytangibleorabstract,etc.)andpartlyalso,perhaps,becausethere isadeceptiveself-evidencybothtoThoreau’sbiographicallococentrism as a lifelong Concordian and to his insistent self-marginalization as a criticofhiscommunity.Thismakesforananalyticaldiscourseofstrong opinions and chronic stumbling blocks. When Thoreauidentifiedwith Concord,withpreciselywhatdidheidentify?Whatwasthemixofcom- munity and biotic affiliation? What sort of sense of place is implied by Thoreau’srepeatedexoticizationofhisConcordsurroundingsandbyhis literalanddiscursivesortiesondaytripsandmoreextendedtripstothe northcountry? ix
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