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Science and Literature Ser.: Seeing New Worlds : Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Natural Science by Laura Dassow Walls (1995, Trade Paperback)
AlibrisBooks (459747)
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- Buy It NowSeeing New Worlds: Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Natural Science
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherUniversity of Wisconsin Press
ISBN-100299147444
ISBN-139780299147440
eBay Product ID (ePID)88591
Product Key Features
Number of Pages232 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication NameSeeing New Worlds : Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Natural Science
SubjectSubjects & Themes / Nature, American / General, Regional, History, United States / General, Subjects & Themes / General
Publication Year1995
TypeTextbook
Subject AreaLiterary Criticism, Nature, Science, History
AuthorLaura Dassow Walls
SeriesScience and Literature Ser.
FormatTrade Paperback
Dimensions
Item Height0.7 in
Item Weight15.5 Oz
Item Length8.9 in
Item Width5.9 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional
LCCN95-007401
Reviews"An excellent book, well-written, even eloquent. Walls is clearly the first scholar to read Thoreau thoroughly in the context both of the science of his own day and of the theory and philosophy of science in our day, in such a way as profoundly to call into question all previous work in this area and to open up questions about the very nature of science and scientific truth."--Robert Sattelmeyer, Georgia State University, "An excellent book, well-written, even eloquent. Walls is clearly the first scholar to read Thoreau thoroughly in the context both of the science of his own day and of the theory and philosophy of science in our day, in such a way as profoundly to call into question all previous work in this area and to open up questions about the very nature of science and scientific truth."-Robert Sattelmeyer, Georgia State University
IllustratedYes
SynopsisThoreau 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., 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.
LC Classification NumberPS3057.N3D37 1995
