Thoreau's Animal Thinking: Sympathetic Tracking to Epiphany

Abstract

Abstract: Thoreau spent much of his career preoccupied with thinking and with animals. In many of his excursions in the woods, he would be deep in thought when an owl, rabbit, otter, or some other creature's movements would catch his eye. Oftentimes, the animal and the tracks they left behind would lead him on a new trajectory, both mentally and physically. This essay focuses on moments of Thoreauvian epiphany when his thoughts, his walking body, and his animal encounters collide. In these moments, Thoreau successfully reads his own thoughts through the paths he takes just as he attempts to interpret animals' thoughts through the tracks they leave behind. By examining fox and moose tracks and walking in them in "Natural History of Massachusetts" (1842) and "Ktaadn" from The Main Woods (1864), Thoreau employs sympathetic tracking to produce animalistic thinking that leads him to some of his greatest epiphanies.