Thoreau’s Botany
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works to apply Thoreau’s extensive studies of botany—from 1850 to his death in 1862—to readings of his published and unpublished works in fresh, interdisciplinary ways.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.
- David M. Robinson, Oregon State University, author of Natural Life: Thoreau’s Worldly TranscendentalismThoreau's Botany has the potential to make a significant contributionto the scholarship on Thoreau and Transcendentalist studies, as well as the fields of environmental and ecological studies. It is well researched and offers a valuable portrayal of Thoreau’s gradual development into serious botanical research and efforts to develop a comprehensive understanding and treatment of plants as our true companions in nature and its life. Warren's extensive close reading of the essay "Autumnal Tints" represents a high point, and the author's disquisition on Walden’s Sand Foliage passage is particularly outstanding.
- Laura Dassow Walls, University of Notre Dame, author of Henry David Thoreau: A LifeWhen Covid forced Jim Warren into a long spell of isolation in New Mexico’s arid Jemez Mountains, he found himself on an unexpected journey into "plant thinking," with Thoreau as his botanical guide into a new mode of awareness, a new way of knowing. In this illuminating book, Warren tracks Thoreau’s own experimental journey into a dynamic natural world that is thinking all the time, where plants become words spoken by the soil, bespeaking the vital language of the Earth. In this new way of understanding "the limits and possibilities of language," Warren finds, with Thoreau, a reconnection to faith in the human ability to divine meaning, even in the hard-used, drought-stricken terrain of the Anthropocene.
Thoreau’s Botany offers a thoughtful and compelling example of plant thinking in practice by a major US environmental writer. Ultimately, Warren invites readers to see plant thinking as a method that, although it might never get humans beyond the critical problem of language, can at least help readers place their faith in an ecology that extends to and includes literary writing.- ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
A meticulously researched and elegantly crafted exploration of a lesser-studied element of Thoreau’s work. Warren’s interdisciplinary approach and deep engagement with Thoreau’s texts offer readers new insights into the ways that a dynamic natural world—specifically the botanical world—shaped Thoreau’s literature and philosophy, and how in turn that can help shape our understanding of him. Warren’s deep admiration for Thoreau is clear, but it never detracts from his analysis. His work on Thoreau’s “plant-thinking” joins a constellation of authors who also explore the intersection of Indigenous knowledge, science (botany), and ethics, such as Robin Wall Kimmerer, whose work Warren discusses. Warren advocates for a more respectful, integrated approach to understanding and engaging with the natural world. Thoreau’s Botany will be appreciated by Thoreau scholars as well as readers interested in environmental studies or the intersections of science and the humanities.- H-Environment
James Perrin Warren is the S. Blount Mason Jr. Professor of English Emeritus at Washington and Lee University and the author of Other Country: Barry Lopez and the Community of Artists.
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: Thoreau’s Botanical Turn
1. The Two Botanical Excursions of The Maine Woods
2. Cape Cod and the Seven Excursions
3. Walden as Botanical Excursion
4. Thoreau's Kalendar: Reading the Journal through Plants
5. The Dispersion of Seeds and the Writer’s Faithful Record
6. Wild Fruits and Transformative Perceptions
Epilogue: Walking in the Anthropocene
Notes
Bibliography
Index
