New Essays on Walden

This review of Thoreau's classic contains a short biography of the author, an account of the writing of Walden, and a summary of other critical views.

Robert F. Sayre (Edited by)

9780521424820, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 30 October 1992

128 pages, 3 b/w illus.
21.5 x 14 x 0.9 cm, 0.158 kg

"Read alongside Walden, I can think of no better way to introduce undergraduates to Thoreau and to issues of contemporary cultural criticism." Jane Bennett, Canadian Review of American Studies

New Essays on Walden reviews Thoreau's classic from four important perspectives. Lawrence Buell explains how decisions by Thoreau's publisher combined with promotion of Thoreau by early Thoreauvians, literary critics and reviewers turned Walden into a classic. Nature writer and ecologist Anne LaBastille writes of her own responses to Walden. H. Daniel Peck examines how the pastoralism of Walden serves to contain not only the forces of industrialism and commerce in American society but also psychic forces in Thoreau's inner life. Finally Michael Fischer re-evaluates Walden in the light of modern literary theory, finding that Thoreau's forthrightness in presenting and analyzing his own politics disarms his skeptical critics. In introducing these new essays, Robert F. Sayre provides a masterful short biography of Thoreau, an account of the writing of Walden, and a summary of other critical views.

Preface
1. Introduction Robert F. Sayre
2. Henry Thoreau enters the American canon Lawrence Buell
3. Fishing in the sky Anne Labastille
4. The crosscurrents of Walden's pastoral H. Daniel Peck
5. Walden and the politics of contemporary literary theory Michael R. Fischer
Notes
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK]