Bright American Rivers
The Luminist Landscapes of Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2730854 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John Conron, John P Conron (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1980 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 144 |
| Publication date | 1980-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0678 • E-ISSN: 1080-6490 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2712560 |
| OpenAlex | W2334870127 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
from Concord, Massachusetts, to Hooksett, New Hampshire, and back,1 he traveled less lightly than first appears. In their dory, Thoreau and his brother John carried their worldly provisions: potatoes and melons for larder and guns and money for supplement; few utensils; a buffalo robe and a cotton tent; wheels for portages; oars, poles, masts, and an improvised sail for navigation. What Thoreau carried in his mind-or took into it in the decade between the journey and the completed book of the journey2 is not so easily described. The very motive of his errand is unprecedented in American travel narratives. Unlike, say, Cooper's Switzerland or Willis' American Scenery, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers prescribes no Grand Tour of dramatic and poetic scenes. Unlike Irving's Tour of the Prairies, it crosses no frontier, except figuratively. Unlike Dwight's Travels, it seeks to make no documentary record of New England settlement. The book's landscapes are confined, with a few exceptions, to the two connected river valleys as
American Environmental and Regional History · Archaeology and Natural History · History
| Citations per year | 0.1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1987 - 2025 (39) |
| Highly cited | No |