Thoreau, Field Naturalist

Abstract

Writers who discuss Thoreau's study of nature tend to neglect or belittle his knowledge of his subject. He was “a natural historian of the intellect,” says Sherman Paul in an excellent, recent paper on Walden. He “saw and recorded nothing new,” observes John Burroughs. He never looked at nature straight in the eye, implies Van Wyck Brooks. These writers concern themselves for the moot part, however, with Walden and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; yet the Journals and the essays “Wild Apples” and “The Succession of Forest Trees” must also be considered in an estimate of Thoreau's work. The fact is that Thoreau is both philosopher and scientist—a field naturalist, one of the forerunners of an increasing number of people who today visit the woods and fields simply for the personal pleasure of quiet hours spent in learning something about the plants and animals they find there. Typical of a field naturalist's work, Thoreau's has a breadth of interest, a sketchiness, and a fusion of thought and feeling, of observation and speculation qualities that exclude him from a place among the great pioneer naturalists but not from one among the finest nature-writers.