SubStance

Abstract:

Within the framework of econarratology, this article analyzes the narrative strategies in Henry David Thoreau’s 1854 Walden; or, Life in the Woods. One of the founding documents of American nature writing, Walden has served as a blueprint for the conceptualization of “a more ‘ecocentric’ way of being” (Buell). Since its inception in the 1990s, ecocritical scholarship has broadened its initial focus on a thematic reevaluation of nature writing to investigate the narratological tools and emotionalizing strategies of texts dealing with nature. This article argues that Walden’s narrative strategies transcend the binary of ‘ecocentric’ vis-à-vis ‘egocentric’ literary perspectives on nature.