Environment, Space, Place

Abstract:

This essay explores ways that looming climate change will affect how we think about future winters in New England. By all accounts, by the end of the twenty-first century the depth of the region's winter snow and cold will be much reduced from their historical averages. Drawing upon personal reflection, scientific data, and close readings of iconic New England authors, the essay examines potential future conceptions of the region's winters. I am particularly interested in how the expected warmer winters will demand rereading literary works by iconic figures such as Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, and Robert Frost. The essay begins with an examination of the role nostalgia has played in popular images of New England winters and argues for a critically informed version of nostalgia that will enable readers to mourn for what they might lose in the future. The concluding section examines the folklore behind the January Thaw. Climate change, I argue, will usher in a period of an ongoing New England thaw to which our poetry and natural history writing will have to adapt.