ABSTRACT
Henry David Thoreau scatological puns reflect more than a robust private sense of humor, more than simple fear of Mrs. Grundy. The word fungus itself reveals through its cognates how such parasitic life, always horrible for Thoreau, battens upon the bodily functions and the defunct. In “Economy” Thoreau memorably criticizes ordinary houses as coffins, but the passage suggests that an even more important conceptual model dominated his thinking about conventional New England architecture. If Thoreau’s excremental vision illuminates the apexes of his artistic achievement, it also leads him to the nadirs. However, Thoreau’s attitude is explained if not palliated by the degree to which John Field is reduced to a merely symbolic entity. Despite Thoreau’s reputation as the patron saint of civil disobedience, Walden’s skeptical view of social reform is rather less congenial to his modern disciples than many would like to imagine.
