Thoreau's late career and The dispersion of seeds

"During the 1850s, as a result of his extensive field studies and his reflection upon scientific and literary methods and goals. Henry David Throeau became a subtle cultural mediator, critically examining and reconciling in his writing the competing claims of empiricism and transcendentalism. This study explores how The Dispersion of Seeds and related works manifest this unique synthesis which characterized Thoreau's late work as a writer and thinker until his untimely death in 1862 at the age 44.

It demonstrates that in his late career Thoreau was working as scientist and poet simultaneously. This study further explorers how Thoreau managed the philosophical and rhetorical tensions involved in bridging the supposed gap between science and poetry, and how, in his later career, he embraced the empirical method of scientific discovery while challenging the reductive assumptions of scientific materialism."--BOOK JACKET.