{"id":88103,"date":"2014-01-15T08:41:16","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T13:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=88103"},"modified":"2014-01-21T09:54:25","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T14:54:25","slug":"the-many-facets-of-henry-david-thoreau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/01\/the-many-facets-of-henry-david-thoreau\/","title":{"rendered":"The Many Facets of Henry David Thoreau"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"In<\/a>
In his new book, Walden’s Shore, ecology and evolutionary biology professor Robert Thorson presents a reassessment of one of America\u2019s leading men of letters. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Henry David Thoreau may be viewed as a poster-child of transcendentalism and revered for his environmental consciousness, ecology and evolutionary biology professor Robert Thorson explores many other facets of this extraordinary man and his surroundings in his latest book, Walden\u2019s Shore <\/i>(Harvard University Press, 2014).<\/p>\n

Thorson, a geologist by training and himself something of a poet, champions Thoreau\u2019s refusal to be categorized as either \u2018just\u2019 a humanist or \u2018just\u2019 a scientist. In fact, he writes that in systems theory, Thoreau\u2019s mind could be classified as an \u2018intransitive\u2019 system because, \u201cIt had two equally viable equilibrium states: the poetic and the scientific. During the summer of 1852 he was tottering on the threshold between these two states when he wrote his widely quoted statement that \u2018every poet has trembled on the verge of science.\u2019 The backdrop for this statement was not Thoreau the poet being seduced by science, but Thoreau the scientist being pushed to the brink of poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/a>
Robert Thorson reads passages of Thomas Cole and Henry David Thoreau to a group of students during a field trip, part of an honors course on Walden and the American Landscape. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Walden\u2019s Shore<\/i> is an outgrowth of an honors course on \u2018Walden and the American Landscape\u2019 that Thorson developed in concert with professor of early American history Robert Gross and associate professor of photography Janet Pritchard.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially, I carefully reread Walden to keep up with the honors students taking our course,\u201d Thorson says, \u201cand I was struck by how good it was. Years later, when writing about America\u2019s kettle lakes and ponds, the intellectual gravity of Walden and Thoreau\u2019s prose kept drawing me back in. Eventually, I found myself quite literally exploring the landscape of Walden Woods.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says the book is an outgrowth of extemporaneous remarks he made to an annual gathering of the Thoreau Society. \u201cIt\u2019s the result of my ever-growing curiosity about this man of letters and his immense knowledge of his physical surroundings,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Thorson\u2019s publisher, Harvard University Press, notes that the book mirrors the spirit of its subject in that it is considered equally appropriate for a scholarly audience and for non-academics who are simply curious about the man and his relationship with the world around him.<\/p>\n

Walden\u2019s Shore<\/i> has no predecessor in the field of Thoreau studies. It is a welcome addition and a needed reassessment of an iconic figure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thorson succeeds in establishing the \u2018place\u2019 in which Thoreau lived and wrote from a geological perspective \u2013 complete with explanations of such things as the Laurentide Ice Sheet and a discussion of Thoreau\u2019s own surprisingly accurate bathymetric pond survey. But he also explores Thoreau\u2019s physical and emotional relationship with his surroundings as they are recorded by references in his Journal<\/i> \u2013 the things that Thoreau reports seeing and feeling and hearing in his daily travels.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbove all else,\u201d Thorson writes, \u201cThoreau was a visual creature \u2026 it is no accident that Thoreau became a surveyor, a vocation literally based on lines of sight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeffrey S. Cramer, curator of the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods<\/a>, says, \u201cWalden\u2019s Shore<\/i> has no predecessor in the field of Thoreau studies. It is a welcome addition and a needed reassessment of an iconic figure.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is apparent from reading Walden\u2019s Shore<\/i> is that author and subject share a kindred spirit, neither willing to succumb to the temptation to \u2018specialize\u2019 too intensely, lest the opportunity to explore additional pathways be overlooked.<\/p>\n

Signed copies of Walden\u2019s Shore<\/i> are available at the UConn Co-op in Storrs Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his new book, Walden’s Shore, geologist Robert Thorson presents a reassessment of one of America\u2019s leading men of letters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":87192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[56],"class_list":["post-88103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 00:56:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88103"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88221,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88103\/revisions\/88221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/87192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88103"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=88103"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=88103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}