Seeing New Worlds: Henry David Thoreau And Nineteenth-century Natural Science (science And Literature Series)

Thoreau was a poet, a naturalist, a major American writer. Was he also a scientist? He was, Laura Dassow Walls suggests. Her book, the first to consider Thoreau as a serious and committed scientist, will change the way we understand his accomplishment and the place of science in American culture. Walls reveals that the scientific texts of Thoreau’s day deeply influenced his best work, from Walden to the Journal to the late natural history essays. Here we see how, just when literature and science were splitting into the “two cultures” we know now, Thoreau attempted to heal the growing rift. Walls shows how his commitment to Alexander von Humboldt’s scientific approach resulted in not only his “marriage” of poetry and science but also his distinctively patterned nature studies. In the first critical study of his “The Dispersion of Seeds” since its publication in 1993, she exposes evidence that Thoreau was using Darwinian modes of reasoning years before the appearance of Origin of Species . This book offers a powerful argument against the critical tradition that opposes a dry, mechanistic science to a warm, “organic” Romanticism. Instead, Thoreau’s experience reveals the complex interaction between Romanticism and the dynamic, law-seeking science of its day. Drawing on recent work in the theory and philosophy of science as well as literary history and theory, Seeing New Worlds bridges today’s “two cultures” in hopes of stimulating a fuller consideration of representations of nature. Thoreau was a poet, a naturalist, a major American writer. Was he also a scientist? He was, Laura Dassow Walls suggests. Her book, the first to consider Thoreau as a serious and committed scientist, will change the way we understand his accomplishment and the place of science in American culture. Walls reveals that the scientific texts of Thoreau s day deeply influenced his best work, from Walden to the Journal to the late natural history essays. Here we see how, just when literature and science were splitting into the two cultures we know now, Thoreau attempted to heal the growing rift. Walls shows how his commitment to Alexander von Humboldt s scientific approach resulted in not only his marriage of poetry and science but also his distinctively patterned nature studies. In the first critical study of his The Dispersion of Seeds since its publication in 1993, she exposes evidence that Thoreau was using Darwinian modes of reasoning years before the appearance of Origin of Species. This book offers a powerful argument against the critical tradition that opposes a dry, mechanistic science to a warm, organic Romanticism. Instead, Thoreau s experience reveals the complex interaction between Romanticism and the dynamic, law-seeking science of its day. Drawing on recent work in the theory and philosophy of science as well as literary history and theory, Seeing New Worlds bridges today s two cultures in hopes of stimulating a fuller consideration of representations of nature. -- Amazon.com Frontmatter Acknowledgments (page xi) Abbreviations (page xiii) Introduction (page 3) 1. Facts and Truth: Transcendental Science from Cambridge to Concord (page 15) 2. The Empire of Thought and the Republic of Particulars (page 53) 3. Seeing New Worlds: Thoreau and Humboldtian Science (page 94) 4. Cosmos: Knowing as Worlding (page 131) 5. A Plurality of Worlds (page 167) 6. Walking the Holy Land (page 212) Notes (page 255) Bibliography (page 280) Index (page 294) Facts And Truth : Transcendental Science From Cambridge To Concord -- The Empire Of Thought And The Republic Of Particulars -- Seeing New Worlds : Thoreau And Humboldtian Science -- Cosmos : Knowing As Worlding -- A Plurality Of Worlds -- Walking The Holy Land. Laura Dassow Walls. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 280-293) And Index. Considering Thoreau as a serious, committed scientist, this book offers an alternative understanding of his accomplishment and the place of science in American literature. It shows how Thoreau's experience reveals the interaction between Romanticism and the dynamic, law-seeking science of its day.