Thoreau’s Mythological Reality

On November 9th, 1851, Henry David Thoreau wrote the following in his journal:

“Facts should only be as the frame to my pictures; they should be material to the mythology which I am writing [....] I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought” (Journal, 92). This passage encapsulates much of Thoreau’s metaphysical philosophy in the sense that it strikes the reader as both paradoxical and intensely profound at the same time. Can facts be self-perceived? Can facts be mythic in nature? To most, facts are, by definition, diametrically opposed to these two qualifiers. In this essay, I will trace the use of mythology throughout Thoreau’s writing in order to explicate how his notion of reality hinges upon these subjective “facts,” and why his mythology-bent mindset proves valuable in an increasingly scientific, individualistic modern world.

In one of the many iconic passages from Thoreau’s “What I Lived For” chapter of Walden, the author makes an enthusiastic call to action for humankind: “Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downwards through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance [...] till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality” (Walden, 400). At first glance, the passage seems relatively straightforward. Thoreau asks us to think deeper about our lives by ignoring our presuppositions about the world; i.e. to peel everything away besides the bare essentials of life as he does at Walden Pond. But take note of the one word he italicizes: “reality.” What does he mean by “reality”? If we consider the subtext of this passage, Thoreau’s suggestion seems to be that the core of human existence is not, in fact, “reality,” but rather a murky film of contrivances that blocks us from true existence, the “hard bottom.” As such, one might suppose that Thoreau’s reality lies in pure opposition to human life and civilization, i.e., in Nature. Yet, as Walter Benn Michaels points out in his essay “Walden’s False Bottoms,” Nature is “something which is defined precisely by its strangeness to us” (Michaels, 139). If the absolutely inhuman Nature serves as the “hard- bottom” of the true reality, can humans ever find it? It would seem that the answer is no, as any “hard bottom” we find will ultimately be interpreted in our human terms. Perhaps then, it is the journey towards the bottom, rather than the actual destination, that Thoreau values above all.

Thoreau effectively repurposes the Kantian theory that there is a gap between the human mind’s construct of the world and the world in itself. Rather than being dismayed that Nature’s inherent truth can never be uncovered, Thoreau dives head first into the alleged “gap” and makes the in-between space his reality. Thoreau acknowledges this point in his famous lecture, “Walking,” where he states, “I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and transient forays only [...] Nature is a personality so vast and universal that we have never seen one of her features” (“Walking,” 251). In other words, one can come close to the hard bottom of reality, perhaps even see fleeting images of it, but in the end it proves impossible to fully reach it. Where does this leave Thoreau? What is the value of his border life in between human society and Nature?

Here we can turn to Thoreau’s mythological mindset for evidence detailing the grand significance of his “in between” realm of existence. In his essay “Autumnal Tints,” Thoreau describes an experience he had with a particularly noteworthy sugar maple tree. Each and every one of the tree’s leaves appears to be glowing, and Thoreau exclaims, “If such a phenomenon occurred but once, it would be handed down by tradition to posterity, and get into the mythology at last” (“Autumnal Tints,” 374). Two important points are raised here. Firstly, Thoreau draws a connection between a phenomenon in the Concord wilderness and an ambiguous “mythology.” Secondly, he notes that such a phenomenon would be passed down through tradition. This latter suggestion proves interesting, as in the passage of Walden cited earlier, Thoreau paints a negative portrait of human tradition and culture. How does a phenomenon such as this red maple glistening in the fall sunlight set itself apart from the rest of human culture to the point that it is worthy of tradition or mythology?

The answer to this question necessitates an understanding of Thoreau’s concept of intentionality, which he explicates towards the end of “Autumnal Tints.” According to Thoreau:

Objects are concealed from our view, not so much because they are out of the course of our visual ray as because we do not bring our minds and eyes to bear on them; for there is no power to see in the eye itself [....] The greater part of the phenomena of Nature are for this reason concealed from us all our lives. (393)

Here we see Thoreau tuning in to the gap between the human mind and Nature. As he points out here, an element of human intentionality proves necessary if one seeks to immerse him or herself in the reality of Nature. The phenomenon of the glistening maple tree, in Thoreau’s eyes, is a real event, a “fact.” However, had he not been looking for it with both his physical eyes and his mind’s eye, he would not have experienced the event.

This would explain why Thoreau believes the maple tree has mythological proportions. Ultimately, it is because this phenomenon bears an element outside of the human mind. The beauty of the maple leaf lies in the fact that it exists outside the “mud and slush” of human society. It is part human, in that it requires intention from the beholder, yet it is also part Nature.

Nonetheless, the question as to why Thoreau associates these phenomenal experiences with mythology remains. Why qualify these phenomena as mythological rather than simply acknowledging them as aesthetically beautiful? On one hand, the implication that his phenomenological “facts” are mythological might seem to discredit them in some way, just as one might perceive Greek mythology as lacking an element of “the real.” Are the Greek gods anything more than just figments of ancient imaginations used to explain human events? On the other hand, Thoreau may genuinely desire this supernatural connotation. In Thoreau’s entry on November 9th, 1951, he writes that these are not “facts to assist men to make money, farmers to farm profitably, in any common sense” (The Journal, 92). Clearly, then, Thoreau’s “facts” are not actually facts in the traditional sense of the word. When considering the word “fact,” one thinks of an inherent truth or axiom; i.e. something impossible to debate. Thoreau’s “facts” are not nearly so objective. Rather, he seems to welcome the subjective when it comes to his “facts which the mind perceived.”

Thoreau reaffirms this point in greater detail on December 25th, 1951, when he writes regarding a sunset he is viewing, “I witness a beauty in the form or coloring of the clouds which addresses itself to my imagination, for which you account scientifically to my understanding, but do not so account to my imagination [....] if you rob it of its symbolicalness, you do me no service and explain nothing” (101). Here Thoreau suggests that interacting with Nature on a purely scientific basis can be seen as a literally meaningless endeavor in that scientific facts have been stripped of any deeper meaning. As a result of society’s overly scientific mindset, Thoreau suggests, “We seek too soon to ally the perceptions of the mind to the experience of the hand” (Journal, 102). By translating Nature into hard, objective data, humankind has increased the mechanical sophistication of society, yet it has lost sight of the beauty in these subjective natural phenomena. Now, one could counter that Thoreau was in many ways a man of science himself. What would one call “The Succession of Forest Trees” other than a scientifically sound treatise on the natural system of forest growth? And did Thoreau not sound Walden Pond, noting its depth with near perfect accuracy?

How do we reconcile these Thoreau’s with the Thoreau who spits upon a scientific account of a cloud, as mentioned above? Perhaps, as Laura Walls suggests in her essay, “Romancing the Real,” Thoreau took part in scientific observation “not because he wanted to be a scientist,” but rather due to the fact that he “found the methods and tools –the technologies– of science useful because his goals converged with the goal of science: toward finding ‘truth’” (Walls, 142). Whereas the end goal of science is to systematically explain the mechanisms behind the universe, Thoreau’s scientific endeavors serve as a form of subsistence. For him, science is more than a means to an end; it is the means to a decidedly unending attempt at mythologizing the world around him. As Walls points outs, “to interrupt the flow, to break the chain of continued articulations [in his journal] even once, would have been to lose everything” (Walls, 141). Thoreau’s journal operates as the life raft that keeps him floating in the realm between human society and Nature, the realm of almost supernatural phenomenon that he seeks to immortalize in his writing. Driving this point home, Thoreau states in his December 25th, 1851 entry, “If there is not something mystical in your explanation, something unexplainable to the understanding, some elements of mystery, it is quite insufficient” (Journal, 101).

In his essay “The Religion of Reality,” Professor Didier Maleuvre brings Thoreau’s argument into the modern day. Maleuvre notes that human society has reached a pinnacle of individualism where “having a self is synonymous with autonomy, self-governance, and the ultimate authority of one’s judgment on matters of feelings, choices, inclinations, moral or religious beliefs, and understanding at large (Maleuvre, 132). The source of this individualism stems from humankind’s utter conquest, or at least its perceived conquest, of Nature. As Maleuvre points out, “Nature is strong but stronger still is man’s power to manipulate its building blocks” (Maleuvre, 134). But with this victory over Nature, humankind has unfortunately forgotten the power of wildness. Thoreau exclaims in “Walking,” “Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him” (“Walking,” 240). Is there any wildness left for modern humans? Maleuvre posits that the answer is no, unless humanity recalibrates its relationship with Nature, for “the progress of science and technology in the last two centuries has all but killed this reverence [for Nature]” (Maleuvre, 134). The days where humans saw the gods in the natural world are gone.

Despite having squashed the idea of the supernatural, however, Maleuvre suggests that humans still have “the sense that mental life is a ghostly and invertebrate thing unless counterbalanced by an outside force as radiant and compelling; the intuition that more is asked of us than perfunctory use of the world” (135). In absence of this outside force, whether it be god or the more secular “Nature,” we have filled the gap with capitalism and material goods. Fully aware of this, Thoreau writes in the “Clothing” chapter of Walden, “If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be” (Walden, 341). Here we see Thoreau foreshadowing Abraham Maslow’s theory of self-actualization. In his essay “A Theory of Human Motivation,” Maslow writes, “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must be” (Maslow). Thoreau clearly understands both the necessity and inherent difficulty of individuals actually “becoming.” Because of the challenge of self-actualization, modern humans have been left with an intensely materialistic world. In a rather depressing summation of humankind’s present state, Maleuvre writes, “if reality dwells in objects, then indeed our reality has become an ever-changing shapeless heap. The impermanent rules” (134). Finding something to “do with” proves simpler than finding something to be.

Fortunately, both Thoreau and Maleuvre describe similar avenues for the salvation of humankind. Maleuvre calls it “having a sense of reality.” In his eyes:

The sense of reality is a skill. Just as a woodchopper has a feeling for timber, just as a diplomat has a feeling for human motivations, and just as a mother has a feeling of what ails or pleases her infant child, so the sense of reality is reached by experiencing and participating fully in the web of dependencies and connections that make up the world. (Maleuvre, 133)

The next step for humanity after self-actualization is carefully putting the infinite pieces of our individual realities together to form an intelligible, collective reality, which was once nothing more than a “shapeless heap.” In other words, Maleuvre seems to be suggesting that, with heightened levels of intuition, intentionality, and emotional intelligence, we will be able to understand the mechanisms at play in the universe in a way that pure science cannot show us. Though slightly more ambiguous than Maleuvre, Thoreau puts forth an eerily similar idea in “Walking” when he writes:

My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence [...] I do not know that this higher knowledge amount to anything more than [...] a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. (250)

In this passage, Thoreau exemplifies the concept of having a “sense of reality.” The atmospheres he seeks to bathe his head in are the very same web of dependencies and connections to which Maleuvre refers. The fact that these atmospheres are unknown to Thoreau’s feet reflects the fact that he is, as Maleuvre would say, “an entity whose power to reflect upon reality in no degree lessens its participation in and responsiveness to reality” (Maleuvre, 133). Thoreau can simultaneously have his feet on the ground, i.e. be present in the moment, while also having his head in atmospheres unknown, i.e. considering the mechanisms of Nature at work around him. Perhaps the most striking connection between Maleuvre and Thoreau’s descriptions, however, are the terms in which they describe the action. Maleuvre uses expressions of sympathy in his definition of the sense of reality; the woodchopper feels for the wood he chops, the diplomat has a feeling for human motivations, the mother has a feeling for what ails or pleases her child. Thoreau outright calls the state of being “Sympathy with Intelligence.”

Thoreau does more than put forth the notion of this “sense of reality” or “Sympathy with Intelligence;” he lives and embodies it by taking note of his observations about reality and converting them into prose for consumption by others. In his essay “Wild Ethics,” Edward Mooney asserts:

Thoreau gives us a Taoist sense that the flow of self and the flow of nature are seamlessly intertwined [...] Rivers, persons at risk, meadowlarks, are, in a sense, “primitive” [...] And our increasingly attentive flow with them is “primitive,” too: [...] Thoreau’s narratives deliver thankful celebrations of our cohabiting common life, in growth and decline. (Mooney, 119-120).

Thoreau not only appreciates the sublime beauty of Nature in the moment he experiences the phenomena, but he feels an intuitive call to capture the moments on the page for posterity. In bridging this gap between the human mind and Nature, he begins to make sense of the web of reality to which Maleuvre refers. What ultimately makes this passage from Mooney’s essay so fascinating, however, is his choice of the word “primitive” in regard to the idea that humankind has an inherent awareness of a deeper relationship with Nature. Fascinating because, as Maleuvre points out in “The Sense of Reality,” modern humans have lost this reverence for Nature, and by Nature he does not mean the natural landscape, but rather creation as a whole. And this brings us back to Thoreau and his conception of mythology. What is mythology if not primitive, or in Thoreau’s own terms, “Wild”? In “Walking,” Thoreau asserts:

I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild [...] Mythology comes nearer to it than anything [...] Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its soil was exhausted, before the fancy and imagination were affected with blight. (245) From a modern perspective, we see Greek mythology as a set of stories that our ancient predecessors used to explain Nature, namely the natural phenomena which their sciences had yet to explain. Though these ancient texts have had a massive influence on the culture of Western society, we have tendency to see these stories as nothing more than important works of fiction written by our scientifically naïve forebears. For the ancient Greeks, however, what we now consider “mythology” was their reality, to the extent that they did not even have a separate word for “religion” (Hughes, 28). As Thoreau sees it, humankind has never come closer to expressing Nature in literature than the ancient Greeks did with their mythology. Rather than discrediting these primitive mythologies that modern science ostensibly disproves, Thoreau holds them in great regard because of how wild and imaginative they are. The Ancient Greeks were so in awe of Nature that they created a religion that bridged the gap.

Here in lies the impetus for Thoreau’s writing. In a powerful passage of “Walking,” Thoreau proclaims: “The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East [...] Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become a fiction of the past, – as it is to some extent a fiction of the present, – the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology” (245). Cannot we describe Thoreau’s canon as one, if not the first, piece of this American mythology? The Oxford Dictionary defines mythology as “a set of stories or beliefs about a particular person, institution, or situation, especially when exaggerated or fictitious.” A justified initial reaction to this definition might be to say, “Thoreau’s texts are not fictitious.” But here I once again make reference to Thoreau’s own journal entry from November 9th, 1851: “My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic” (92). This is not to say that Thoreau’s works are false, but rather the exact contrary. We subconsciously consider Thoreau’s subjective reality conjured in Walden to be “real.” In other words, my perception of Walden Pond and Concord, Massachusetts is based purely upon the world building that Thoreau does in his texts. As Laura Walls suggests in “Romancing the Real,” “Not only does the journal speak in Thoreau’s absence, for many readers the whole of nature– or at least New England nature– will always ‘speak’ Thoreau” (Walls, 141). Thoreau succeeded in mythologizing his homeland, and in doing so, he also created a mythology of the self. Over 150 years after his death, the figure of Henry David Thoreau still lives on in the collective modern consciousness. As such, Thoreau’s statement, “I would so state facts that they [...] shall be myths,” proves to be an accurate mission statement rather than a paradoxical aphorism.

But what is it about Thoreau’s writing that causes the reader to weave his reality into his or her own? I return to Maleuvre and Mooney in response to this question. The former posits that human beings have an inherent “sense that mental life is a ghostly and invertebrate thing unless counterbalanced by an outside force as radiant and compelling” (Maleuvre, 135). The latter similarly suggests that we have a “primitive” tendency to seek deeper communion with Nature (Mooney, 120). Following this train of thought, Thoreau’s writing satisfies these desires within us. As Mooney puts it, “Thoreau cultivates a sensibility and a manner of living at once practical, moral, aesthetic, religious, and political [...] It relies on images, pictures, scenarios, aphorisms, and narratives that present the wild of our thoughts and worlds as untamed wonder” (116). Even though modern society may have lost its reverence for Nature, we are eager to accept Thoreau’s reality because it, unlike our own, is well constructed. While perhaps not entirely “factual” in a technical sense, Thoreau’s depiction of New England strikes one as earnest and human.

For example, Thoreau writes in “Wild Apples” that the eponymous apples taste best when eaten outdoors after they have “hung in the wind and frost and rain till they have absorbed the qualities of the weather or season, and thus are highly seasoned” (459). Rather than scientific or factual description, it is the utter subjectivity and whimsical tone of this passage that makes it so endearing to readers. We appreciate the latent magic at work in Thoreau’s phenomenal description of eating a ripe apple on cold November day. Accordingly, when Thoreau laments that “the era of the Wild Apple will soon be past” as a result of the commodification of apple trees, the reader feels the loss as well (466). Though many among Thoreau’s audience may have never experienced the pure joy of consuming a Wild Apple, they can imagine what it would be like because of his incredible intuition and knack for giving Nature a sympathetic, human voice in the form of his writing.

Though Maleuvre suggests that wildness in the natural world no longer exists, modern humans may have the opportunity to experience wildness on slightly different terms. Unlike Thoreau’s wild that existed in opposition to humankind, this new wild is in a way the byproduct of human actions. Though practical in the sense that it has helped with the technological advancement of society, the infinite amount of data and information in the modern world has unquestionably fragmented the subjective realities of each individual into an equally infinite number of pieces. Thoreau had an inkling that his peers had an increasing hunger for scientific, fact-based knowledge, and he was wary of it: “A man’s ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful, – while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly” (“Walking,” 250). Modern reality is, as Thoreau aptly puts it, ugly. Human achievements in science have provided us with a wealth of knowledge, but in many ways, this knowledge proves to be little more than an informational overload that has an inverse relation to our understanding of the universe. Each individual person has his or her own conception of how all the pieces of modern life fit together, but because we are no longer mutually connected to a greater force outside of ourselves, all of these subjective realities lay isolated in a massive, torrid void. And so, we return to the question: What is the new wild?

As Thoreau would put it, the new wild necessitates a return to ignorance by seeking sympathy with intelligence rather than society’s precious knowledge. We must parse our way through the informational overload to find a way in which all of our subjective realities fit together in a way that makes sense. This is a human process, not a scientific one. It requires emotion, intuition, and intention. If we return to Maslow’s term “self- actualization,” he asserts that a key part of the process involves the need to “systematize the universe [....] to know, to be aware of reality, to get the facts” (Maslow). As evidenced here, Maslow’s “self-actualization” clearly points to the same notion as Thoreau’s “sympathy with intelligence” or Maleuvre’s “sense for reality.” With this in mind, I offer that the modern wild is the idea of a self-actualized human society. By this I do not mean some science fictional utopia, but rather a society driven by interactions between self-actualized individuals who have a human, not a scientific, appreciation for the mystical mechanisms at play in the universe. We have fallen into a trap wherein we believe reality consists of objective facts, and this has only led to the neglect of the much more profound, beautiful reality that lies outside of human interest. As Maleuvre points out, “Only when we stop looking through the focus of what we want or need to know and start seeing for the sake of the seen, only then does reality fully arise” (Maleuvre, 135).

If one is willing to reorganize his or her own sense of reality, then this wildness may begin to make itself known. If not in the form of pseudo-tangible phenomena like the glistening maple leaf, then there is still a spiritual wildness to be found. Mooney suggests in “Wild Ethics” that “wildness is also [...] an inner rupture, a recurring splitting of the self, its shattering in surprise, outrage, rapture, wonder” (118). Whereas the ancient Greeks interacted with the inhuman, inexplicable wildness of Nature by creating a body of humanly intelligible mythology, modern humans must do the exact opposite. In a fact- obsessed world where scientific data flows infinitely, humanity must find a way to rediscover the magic of a universe that has been categorically dissected and de- mythologized. If we let Thoreau be our guide, then we will begin by giving up the pursuit of knowledge and instead turn to sympathy with intelligence. In doing so, humanity will herald a new era of wildness: one defined by the ability of individuals to traverse the infinite number of subjective realities that compose the modern world. We will continue Thoreau’s creation of modern mythology by composing a web between our own Walden Ponds.

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