Walden Pond as Thoreau’s Landscape of Genius

2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-250
Author(s):  
Scott Hess
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Spiritual Power ◽  
Lake District ◽  
Natural Landscape ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
Authorial Identity ◽  
English Lake District ◽  
New Form ◽  
Walden Pond

Scott Hess, “Walden Pond as Thoreau’s Landscape of Genius” (pp. 224–250) This essay explores how Henry David Thoreau’s identification with Walden Pond was influenced by the nineteenth-century discourse of the literary landscape and by William Wordsworth’s association with the English Lake District in particular. Wordsworth was a central figure for the transatlantic development of the “landscape of genius”—a new form of literary landscape in which the genius of the author, associated with a specific natural landscape, mediated the spiritual power of nature for individual readers and tourists. Wordsworth’s identification of his authorial identity with the Lake District landscape had a formative influence on both Thoreau’s self-conception and his subsequent reception and canonization, as Thoreau and Walden Pond as his landscape of genius entered the canon together. The essay concludes by exploring the ongoing significance of Thoreau’s association with Walden for both his scholarly and popular reputations, including proliferating discourses of “Thoreau Country”; cultural and political disputes over the Concord and Walden landscapes; and invocations of Thoreau as an ecological hero and inspiration for responses to climate change.

The significance of aesthetic landscape appreciation to modern geotourism provision

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Hose
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Lake District ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
English Lake District ◽  
European Engagement ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Nineteeth Century

Many of the stakeholders involved in modern geotourism provision lack awareness of how the concept essentially ermeged, developed and was defined in Europe. Such stakeholders are unaware of how many of the modern approaches to landscape promotion and interpretation actually have nineteeth century antecedents. Similarly, many of the apparently modern threats to, and issues around, the protection of wild and fragile landscapes and geoconservation of specific geosites also first emerged in the ninetheeth century; the solutions that were developed to address those threats and issues were first applied in the early twentieth century and were subsequently much refined by the opening of the twenty-first century. However, the European engagement with wild and fragile landscapes as places to be appreciated and explored began much earlier than the nineteenth century and can be traced back to Renaissance times. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a summary consideration of this rather neglected aspect of geotourism, initially by considering its modern recognition and definitions and then by examining the English Lake District (with further examples from Britain and Australia available at the website) as a particular case study along with examples.

Percy Faraday Frankland, 1858-1946

1948 ◽  
Vol 5 (16) ◽  
pp. 697-715 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Lake District ◽  
Scottish Highlands ◽  
The North ◽  
English Lake District ◽  
Purification Of Water

Percy Faraday Frankland was born in London on 3 October 1858. He was the second son of Sir Edward Frankland, whose contributions to chemical thought in the nineteenth century and whose researches on the purification of water, have established his reputation as one of the most outstanding scientists of the period. Edward Frankland, who was resident in London, succeeded Hofmann as Professor of Chemistry at the Royal School of Mines in 1865, and his son thus had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with many of the famous scientific personalities of the day, including, when he was very young, Faraday, who was his godfather. When a boy he was taken by his father to the Scottish Highlands (in 1867 and 1870), as well as to the English Lake District. He also stayed frequently with his grandparents at Leyland in Lancashire. Perhaps in this way he developed a great liking for the North, and more especially for its wilder scenery.

A New Form of Modern Sport: The Beginnings of Lakeland Rock Climbing 1880–1914

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Mike Huggins
Keyword(s):  
Rock Climbing ◽  
Lake District ◽  
Extended Body ◽  
English Lake District ◽  
New Form ◽  
Key Participants

The English Lake District played a key role in British rock climbing and is arguably the place where rock climbing first separated from mountaineering in the 1880s. This article sets its origins in the wider context of Alpinism. It then explains the attractions of the Lake District to early climbers and the ways and locations in which early rock climbing emerged as key participants exploited the landscape to create the innovative rock climbing challenges that were key to their enjoyment. It provides rich detail on how the sport extended body limits, developed new climbing techniques, and used better equipment. Leading climbers there began to record and measure the standard of climbs—another innovation. Although mountaineering clubs elsewhere were exclusively male, relegating leading women mountaineers to a marginal role, in the Lakes, women rock climbers made a notable contribution. The article concludes by evaluating the wider significance of the Lake District for British climbing.

A pre-caldera plateau-andesite field in the Borrowdale Volcanic Group of the English Lake District

1992 ◽  
Vol 149 (6) ◽  
pp. 889-906 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. G. PETTERSON ◽  
B. BEDDOE-STEPHENS ◽  
D. MILLWARD ◽  
E. W. JOHNSON
Keyword(s):  
Lake District ◽  
Volcanic Group ◽  
English Lake District

scholarly journals Effects of climate change and industrialization on Lake Bolshoe Toko, eastern Siberia

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-352
Author(s):  
Boris K. Biskaborn ◽  
Biljana Narancic ◽  
Kathleen R. Stoof-Leichsenring ◽  
Lyudmila A. Pestryakova ◽  
Peter G. Appleby ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Deep Water ◽  
Boreal Lakes ◽  
Lake Ecosystem ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
Eastern Siberia ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Planktonic Diatoms ◽  
Recent Climate

AbstractIndustrialization in the Northern Hemisphere has led to warming and pollution of natural ecosystems. We used paleolimnological methods to explore whether recent climate change and/or pollution had affected a very remote lake ecosystem, i.e. one without nearby direct human influence. We compared sediment samples that date from before and after the onset of industrialization in the mid-nineteenth century, from four short cores taken at water depths between 12.1 and 68.3 m in Lake Bolshoe Toko, eastern Siberia. We analyzed diatom assemblage changes, including diversity estimates, in all four cores and geochemical changes (mercury, nitrogen, organic carbon) from one core taken at an intermediate water depth. Chronologies for two cores were established using 210Pb and 137Cs. Sedimentation rates were 0.018 and 0.033 cm year−1 at the shallow- and deep-water sites, respectively. We discovered an increase in light planktonic diatoms (Cyclotella) and a decrease in heavily silicified euplanktonic Aulacoseira through time at deep-water sites, related to more recent warmer air temperatures and shorter periods of lake-ice cover, which led to pronounced thermal stratification. Diatom beta diversity in shallow-water communities changed significantly because of the development of new habitats associated with macrophyte growth. Mercury concentrations increased by a factor of 1.6 since the mid-nineteenth century as a result of atmospheric fallout. Recent increases in the chrysophyte Mallomonas in all cores suggested an acidification trend. We conclude that even remote boreal lakes are susceptible to the effects of climate change and human-induced pollution.

scholarly journals The Productive Landscape in the Desert Margin for the Sustainable Development of Rural Settlements: An Innovative Greenbelt for Maranjab Desert in Iran

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2077
Author(s):  
Mahnaz Sarlak ◽  
Laura Valeria Ferretti ◽  
Rita Biasi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Agricultural Systems ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Green Belt ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
New Form ◽  
Low Levels

About two billion rural individuals depend on agricultural systems associated with a high amount of risk and low levels of yield in the drylands of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Human activities, climate change and natural extreme events are the most important drivers of desertification. This phenomenon has occurred in many regions of Iran, particularly in the villages in the periphery of the central desert of Iran, and has made living in the oases so difficult that the number of abandoned villages is increasing every year. Land abandonment and land-use change increase the risk of desertification. This study aims to respond to the research questions: (i) does the planning of green infrastructures on the desert margin affect the distribution and balance of the population? (ii) how should the green belt be designed to have the greatest impact on counteracting desertification?, and (iii) does the design of productive landscape provide the solution? Through a wide-ranging and comprehensive approach, this study develops different scenarios for designing a new form of green belt in order to sustainably manage the issues of environmental protection, agricultural tradition preservation and desertification counteraction. This study proposes a new-traditional greenbelt including small low-cost and low-tech projects adapted to rural scale.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document