EcoEnglish--ENG 460

Upon reading the excerpts of Thoreau, it became clear to me how much influence he has had over environmentalism since his being published. He creates his own brand of mystique for the wilderness that seems to have become largely popularized, like his idea that the earth is, "not a dead inert mass. It is a body-has a spirit-is organic-and fluid to the influence of its spirit-and to whatever particle of that spirit is in me" (8). He ascribes almost divine characteristics to the earth, which (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this) seems to be a pretty novel idea for the time. It's almost like he's substituting nature for Catholicism, or whatever form of Christianity he followed previously in his life. In this way, his enthusiasm seems rather childish to me. This is not to say that his passion is necessarily a negative thing; it's actually somewhat refreshing. Nevertheless, as was mentioned in class, he seems to be overly and naively optimistic about nature and sometimes ignores the fact that he is able to live this lifestyle because of his money.
With Cronon we get a detailed picture of what shifts America was going through around the time that Thoreau came on the scene. He shows us that Thoreau was not the only one who was beginning to assign a religious reverence for the wilderness; specifically, people like John Muir were comparing Yosemite to Eden and Sierra Nevada to heaven. Cronon goes on to explain that the concepts of the sublime and the frontier were central forces driving this new perception of nature as sacred rather than wasteland. This explanation had kind of a disillusioning effect over Thoreau's romanticism for me. It was sort of like seeing how a trick is managed in a way. While I am fully aware that Thoreau exaggerates the mystique of the wilderness, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes childish enthusiasm (maybe a different wording, I can't think of one right now) is a nice change of pace. Ultimately, while Cronon's views are much more realistic, there is definitely something about Thoreau's passion that appeals to me. Plus, Cronon has a pretty big advantage when it comes to seeming more reasonable since he is writing in present times.