Dr. Leonard Gougeon of the Department of English and Theater presented a research seminar on Thoreau.  At the outset of the Civil War there was an almost immediate breakdown in relations between the United States and Great Britain. The British government decided with the eruption of hostilities that the best way to handle the American crisis would be to stay out of it. Consequently, on 13 May 1861 the Queen's Neutrality Proclamation was issued. This measure in addition to prohibiting British participation in the struggle also granted belligerent status to the new Confederacy. To many in the North this amounted to recognition of the rebels.  The situation worsened rapidly when in November a U. S. warship  stopped the British steamer Trent and  removed the Confederate commissioners James M. Mason and John Slidell, thus precipitating an international crisis known as the "Trent Affair." What followed, in the words of one commentator, was "a devastating collapse in Anglo-American understanding."  Major British writers responded with harsh criticisms of American culture and values. One of the most prominent, Matthew Arnold, observed that the American Union was "full of rawness, hardness, and imperfection" and was vastly inferior to Britain's sophisticated civilization.

It is in this troubled historical context that Thoreau's classic essays "Walking," "Autumnal Tints," "Wild Apples," and "Life Without Principle" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. It is not surprising that all of these works reflect the tensions of the moment. In them Thoreau offered a subtle defense of American naturalness and "rawness" and strong criticism of Britain's effete and superficial culture. The opening statement of "Walking" (which appeared in the June 1862 issue) makes the contrast clear. "I wish to speak a word for nature," Thoreau asserts, "for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and Culture merely civil, - to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society." In comparison, Thoreau asserts, "English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake Poets, . . . breathes no quite fresh and, in this sense, wild strain" and therefore lacks life. Throughout the remaining essays Thoreau continued this theme, praising America's natural landscape as well as its natural virtue while subtly indicting British culture for its lack of vitality and moral fiber. For the patriotic Thoreau, the future belongs to a free America. He was confident that with the defeat of the South and the end of slavery, someday "the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology."