“I seek acquaintance with nature to know all her moods
and manners. Primitive nature is the most interesting to me. I take infinitive
pains to know all the phenomena of the spring, for instance, thinking that I
have here the entire poem, and, then, to my chagrin I hear that is but an
imperfect copy that I possess and have read, that my ancestors have torn out
many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many
places. I should not like to think that some demigod had come before me and picked
out some of the best of the stars. I wish to know the entire heaven and an
entire earth. All the great trees, and beasts, fishes and fowls are gone.” —American
essayist, naturalist and poet Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), journal entry
for Mar. 23, 1856, in The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861
(2009)
PBS is giving Thoreau the same treatment it gave Ernest Hemingway a few
years ago: a three-part documentary by Ken Burns, starting tonight. It’s hard
to overstate the importance of this Transcendentalist as naturalist and protest
figure.
Hailed by youth in the 1960s, Thoreau may be
experiencing an even greater groundswell of interest now. Let’s hope so.
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