Natural Life: Thoreau's Worldly Transcendentalism - Hardcover

Robinson, David M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080144313X ISBN 13: 9780801443138

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2004

Synopsis

"An essential step in Thoreau's recovery of a 'natural life' is to reawaken and expand his awareness of the present moment, not only in the sense of knowing more of the world around him, but of entering into it fully. Admitting in Walden that 'I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans,' he also confesses to moments in which he neglected both of these conflicting duties.... In periods of reverie, Thoreau gave himself over to his senses, finding a fulfillment in his own attentive presence at the pond and the surrounding hills."―from Natural Life

Henry David Thoreau's Walden was first published 150 years ago, an event celebrated by many gatherings scheduled for 2004 and marked by the publication of this exceptional book. David M. Robinson tells the story of a mind at work, focusing on Thoreau's idea of "natural life" as both a subject of study and a model for personal growth and ethical purpose. Robinson traces Thoreau's struggle to find a fulfilling vocation and his gradual recovery from his grief over the loss of his brother.

Robinson emphasizes Thoreau's development of the credo of living a "natural life," a phrase drawn from his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. The depiction of the contemplative life close to nature in Walden exemplifies this credo. But it is also fulfilled through Thoreau's later life as a saunterer in the fields and forests around Concord, devoted to his studies of the natural world and dedicated to a life of principle.

Natural Life takes note of and encourages growing interest in the later phase of Thoreau's career and his engagement with science and natural history. Robinson looks closely at Walden and the essays and natural history projects that followed it, such as "Walking" and "Wild Apples," and the remarkable and little-observed writing on night and moonlight found in Thoreau's journal.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"The Thoreau of steadfast thought and of endless sauntering are both fully present in these pages. There is, in David M. Robinson's writing, a fullness of fact, a minimum of supposition, and a sense altogether of curiosity and appreciation for his subject. Natural Life is a testament to the presence, in Thoreau's life, of his grief, indecision, persistence, declarative joy, astonishing recordation of the works of the earth, and inspirational thought."—Mary Oliver

"This is the best, most thoughtful, most carefully worked out account of Thoreau’s major ideas that I know. No lover of Thoreau can afford to miss this book. Just as reading Thoreau restores one’s faith in an older and better America, so David M. Robinson’s warm, informed, and brilliant writing restores one’s faith in the modern American intellectual appreciation of that other and earlier America."—Robert D. Richardson Jr., author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire

"Natural Life is a deeply informed and wonderfully discerning guide to Thoreau's thought and writing, equally valuable for the light it sheds on Thoreau's individual works and for its grasp of the evolution of Thoreau's whole career as a continuous process of unfolding."--Lawrence Buell, Harvard University, author of Literary Transcendentalism; The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture; and Emerson

About the Author:

David M. Robinson is Oregon Professor of English and Director of the Center for the Humanities at Oregon State University. He is the author of Emerson and the Conduct of Life and editor of The Spiritual Emerson, among many other books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 080144313X
• ISBN 13: 9780801443138
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256