Excursions with Thoreau

Excursions with Thoreau is a major new exploration of Thoreaus writing and thought that is philosophical yet sensitive to the literary and religious. Edward F. Mooneys excursions through passages from Walden, Cape Cod, and his late essay Walking reveal Thoreau as a miraculous writer, artist, and religious adept. Of course Thoreau remains the familiar political activist and environmental philosopher, but in these fifteen excursions we discover new terrain. Among the notable themes that emerge are Thoreaus grappling with underlying affliction; his pursuit of wonder as ameliorating affliction; his use of the enigmatic image of a child of the mist; his exalting sympathy with intelligence over plain knowledge; and his preferring befitting reverienot argumentas the way to be carried to better, cleaner perceptions of reality. Mooneys aim is bring alive Thoreaus moments of reverie and insight, and to frame his philosophy as poetic and episodic rather than discursive and systematic.