Thoreau’s Botany

Thoreau’s Botany PDF Author: James Perrin Warren
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813949491
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Thoreau’s last years have been the subject of debate for decades, but only recently have scholars and critics begun to appreciate the posthumous publications, unfinished manuscripts, and Journal entries that occupied the writer after Walden (1854). Until now, no critical reader has delved deeply enough into botany to see how Thoreau’s plant studies impact his thinking and writing. Thoreau’s Botany moves beyond general literary appreciation for the botanical works to apply Thoreau’s extensive studies of botany—from 1850 to his death in 1862—to readings of his published and unpublished works in fresh, interdisciplinary ways. Bringing together critical plant studies, ecocriticism, and environmental humanities, James Perrin Warren argues that Thoreau’s botanical excursions establish a meeting ground of science and the humanities that is only now ready to be recognized by readers of American literature and environmental literature.

Thoreau’s Botany

Thoreau’s Botany PDF Author: James Perrin Warren
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813949491
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Get Book Here

Book Description
Thoreau’s last years have been the subject of debate for decades, but only recently have scholars and critics begun to appreciate the posthumous publications, unfinished manuscripts, and Journal entries that occupied the writer after Walden (1854). Until now, no critical reader has delved deeply enough into botany to see how Thoreau’s plant studies impact his thinking and writing. Thoreau’s Botany moves beyond general literary appreciation for the botanical works to apply Thoreau’s extensive studies of botany—from 1850 to his death in 1862—to readings of his published and unpublished works in fresh, interdisciplinary ways. Bringing together critical plant studies, ecocriticism, and environmental humanities, James Perrin Warren argues that Thoreau’s botanical excursions establish a meeting ground of science and the humanities that is only now ready to be recognized by readers of American literature and environmental literature.

Thoreau's Wildflowers

Thoreau's Wildflowers PDF Author: Henry D. Thoreau
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300221010
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Some of Henry David Thoreau’s most beautiful nature writing was inspired by the flowering trees and plants of Concord. An inveterate year-round rambler and journal keeper, he faithfully recorded, dated, and described his sightings of the floating water lily, the elusive wild azalea, and the late autumn foliage of the scarlet oak. This inviting selection of Thoreau’s best flower writings is arranged by day of the year and accompanied by Thoreau’s philosophical speculations and his observations of the weather and of other plants and animals. They illuminate the author’s spirituality, his belief in nature’s correspondence with the human soul, and his sense that anticipation—of spring, of flowers yet to bloom—renews our connection with the earth and with immortality. Thoreau’s Wildflowers features more than 200 of the black-and-white drawings originally created by Barry Moser for his first illustrated book, Flowering Plants of Massachusetts. This volume also presents “Thoreau as Botanist,” an essay by Ray Angelo, the leading authority on the flowering plants of Concord.

Bird Relics

Bird Relics PDF Author: Branka Arsić
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674495381
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Birds were never far from Thoreau’s mind. They wing their way through his writing just as they did through his cabin on Walden Pond, summoned or dismissed at whim by his whistles. Emblematic of life, death, and nature’s endless capacity for renewal, birds offer passage into the loftiest currents of Thoreau’s thought. What Branka Arsić finds there is a theory of vitalism that Thoreau developed in response to his brother’s death. Through grieving, Thoreau came to see life as a generative force into which everything dissolves. Death is not an annulment of life but the means of its transformation and reemergence. Bird Relics traces Thoreau’s evolving thoughts through his investigation of Greek philosophy and the influence of a group of Harvard vitalists who resisted the ideas of the naturalist Louis Agassiz. It takes into account materials often overlooked by critics: his Indian Notebooks and unpublished bird notebooks; his calendars that rewrite how we tell time; his charts of falling leaves, through which he develops a complex theory of decay; and his obsession with vegetal pathology, which inspires a novel understanding of the relationship between disease and health. Arsić’s radical reinterpretation of Thoreau’s life philosophy gives new meaning to some of his more idiosyncratic habits, such as writing obituaries for people he did not know and frequenting estate sales, and raises important questions about the ethics of Thoreau’s practice of appropriating the losses of others as if they were his own.

Henry David Thoreau in Context

Henry David Thoreau in Context PDF Author: James S. Finley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108500978
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 655

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Book Description
Well known for his contrarianism and solitude, Henry David Thoreau was nonetheless deeply responsive to the world around him. His writings bear the traces of his wide-ranging reading, travels, political interests, and social influences. Henry David Thoreau in Context brings together leading scholars of Thoreau and nineteenth-century American literature and culture and presents original research, valuable synthesis of historical and scholarly sources, and innovative readings of Thoreau's texts. Across thirty-four chapters, this collection reveals a Thoreau deeply concerned with and shaped by a diverse range of environments, intellectual traditions, social issues, and modes of scientific practice. Essays also illuminate important posthumous contexts and consider the specific challenges of contextualizing Thoreau today. This collection provides a rich understanding of Thoreau and nineteenth-century American literature, political activism, and environmentalist thinking that will be a vital resource for students, teachers, scholars, and general readers.

Thoreau's Wildflowers

Thoreau's Wildflowers PDF Author: Henry David Thoreau
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300214774
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
The first collection of Thoreau's writings on the flowering plants of Concord, with more than 200 drawings by renowned artist Barry Moser Some of Henry David Thoreau's most beautiful nature writing was inspired by the flowering trees and plants of Concord. An inveterate year-round rambler and journal keeper, he faithfully recorded, dated, and described his sightings of the floating water lily, the elusive wild azalea, and the late autumn foliage of the scarlet oak. This inviting selection of Thoreau's best flower writings is arranged by day of the year and accompanied by Thoreau's philosophical speculations and his observations of the weather and of other plants and animals. They illuminate the author's spirituality, his belief in nature's correspondence with the human soul, and his sense that anticipation--of spring, of flowers yet to bloom--renews our connection with the earth and with immortality. Thoreau's Wildflowers features more than 200 of the black-and-white drawings originally created by Barry Moser for his first illustrated book, Flowering Plants of Massachusetts. This volume also presents "Thoreau as Botanist," an essay by Ray Angelo, the leading authority on the flowering plants of Concord.

Wild Fruits

Wild Fruits PDF Author: Henry David Thoreau
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393321159
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
Thoreau presents information about the "'unnoticed wild berry whose beauty annually lends a new charm to some wild walk, '" along with what "may be considered Thoreau's last will and testament, in which he protests our desecration of the landscape, reflects on the importance of preserving wild space 'for instruction and recreation, ' and envisions a new American scripture."--Jacket.

The Days of Henry Thoreau

The Days of Henry Thoreau PDF Author: Walter Harding
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400875560
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 535

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Book Description
Henry David Thoreau is generally remembered as the author of Walden and "Civil Disobedience," a recluse of the woods and a political protester who once went to jail. To his contemporaries he was a minor disciple of Emerson; he has since joined the ranks of America's most respected and beloved writers. Few, however, really know the complexity of the man they revere—wanderer and scholar, naturalist and humorist, teacher and surveyor, abolitionist and poet, Transcendentalist and anthropologist, inventor and social critic, and, above all, individualist. In this widely acclaimed biography, the eminent Thoreau scholar Walter Harding presents all of these Thoreaus. Scholars will find here the culmination of a lifetime of research and study, meticulously documented, while general readers will find an absorbing story of a remarkable man. Writing with supreme lucidity, Harding has marshaled all the facts so as best to “let them speak for themselves.” Thoreau’s thoughtfulness and stubbornness, his more than ordinarily human amalgam of the earthy and sublime, his unquenchable vitality emerge to the reader as they did to his own family, friends, and critics. The new afterword evaluates new scholarship about Thoreau. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Postapocalyptic Fantasies in Antebellum American Literature

Postapocalyptic Fantasies in Antebellum American Literature PDF Author: John Hay
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108304826
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Even before the Civil War, American writers were imagining life after a massive global catastrophe. For many, the blank slate of the American continent was instead a wreckage-strewn wasteland, a new world in ruins. Bringing together epic and lyric poems, fictional tales, travel narratives, and scientific texts, Postapocalyptic Fantasies in Antebellum American Literature reveals that US authors who enthusiastically celebrated the myths of primeval wilderness and virgin land also frequently resorted to speculations about the annihilation of civilizations, past and future. By examining such postapocalyptic fantasies, this study recovers an antebellum rhetoric untethered to claims for historical exceptionalism - a patriotic rhetoric that celebrates America while denying the United States a unique position outside of world history. As the scientific field of natural history produced new theories regarding biological extinction, geological transformation, and environmental collapse, American writers responded with wild visions of the ancient past and the distant future.

Among the Gently Mad

Among the Gently Mad PDF Author: Nicholas A. Basbanes
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805074413
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Guide on book collecting, making use of the electronic tools now available and more proven methods of acquisition. Insights from the world's most notable collectors, dealers and librarians. Collecting strategies. Survey of some prices of antiquarian books.

Walking With Thoreau

Walking With Thoreau PDF Author: William Howarth
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 9780807085554
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
A Literary Guide to the Mountains of New England Commentary by William Howarth Walking with Thoreau features Henry David Thoreau's writings on nine New England mountains. William Howarth's illuminating commentary, printed alongside Thoreau's text, allows the presentday hiker to retrace Thoreau's footsteps up some of New England's most popular mountain destinations.