"That wholly visionary dream land": Thoreau's Early Natural-History Writing

Thoreau’s late essays and phenological charts have often been read as part of a post-Walden turn toward the natural sciences, but such a timeline risks downplaying Thoreau’s early interest in the nonhuman, from family... [ view full abstract ]

Thoreau’s late essays and phenological charts have often been read as part of a post-Walden turn toward the natural sciences, but such a timeline risks downplaying Thoreau’s early interest in the nonhuman, from family ornithology albums to one of his earliest publications in The Dial.  This presentation specifically takes up the question of Thoreau’s fishes to explore the links between perception, affect, and this early phase of Thoreau’s natural-history writing, beginning with “The Natural History of Massachusetts” and spanning his years at Walden, when he travelled to Maine and woke from a dream of trout fishing. Ultimately, I suggest a model of Thoreau’s early impulse toward natural history that is affective, political, and deeply experiential--and also profoundly connected to his later natural history essays.