1、American Literature After 1850,Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)Walden (1854) and selected poems, Dr Susan Oliver 2010Room 5A.135email: soliveressex.ac.uk,Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862),Born and died Concord, Massachusetts Only once travelled outside the USA - to Montreal and Quebec in 1850. However,
2、 In terms of literature and the associative imagination, he “travelled” extensively - to Europe, the far east, the pacific nations, and the farthest tip of South America. For Thoreau, intimate knowldege of the local, natural environment opened the mind to literary exploration of the globe and univer
3、se. He was known as one of the “Brahmin” transcendentalists because of his interest in eastern - and particularly Hindu - philosophy, myth and literature. Walden takes as its setting a single location on the outskirts of Concord, Massachusetts, New England. Through the imagination and processes of a
4、ssociation, the narrator talks about a wide range of western classical literature, particularly that of ancient Greece (the description of the Ant War in Brute Neighbors parodies the extended simile and accounts of heroism in Greek epic). Thoreau also refers to Confucius, the 5th century B.C. Chines
5、e philosopher and mystic, and to Indian Brahmin philosophy. Thoreaus experiment in living alone at Walden Pond offers a different kind of transcendentalist utopia to that of George Ripleys Brook Farm Project commune (a project in which other transcendentalist writers including Nathaniel Hawthorne an
6、d Margaret Fuller participated).,Transcendentalism,From R. W. Emerson, Nature (1836)Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not
7、 we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us b
8、y the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts.
9、Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.,From R. W. Emerson, The American Scholar (1837)The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of Nature. Every day, the sun; and, after sunset, Night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Eve
10、ry day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden. The scholar is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages. He must settle its value in his mind. What is Nature to him? There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circ
11、ular power returning into itself. Therein it resembles his own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he never can find,so entire, so boundless. Far, too, as her splendors shine, system on system shooting like rays upward, downward, without centre, without circumference,in the mass and in the partic
12、le, Nature hastens to render account of herself to the mind. Classification begins. To the young mind, everything is individual, stands by itself. . . . And, in fine, the ancient precept, “Know thyself,” and the modern precept, “Study Nature,” become at last one maxim. . . . Ends: A nation of men wi
13、ll for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.,The Dial: a periodical dedicated to Transcendentalsim. Founded and edited by Emerson andhttp:/www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/dial.html An original relation to the universe,
14、 founded on self-reliance and respect (R. Gray, A History of American Literature, 130) Emphasis on the individual Awareness of the presence of a spiritual, creative power in nature and in man (pantheism) and a sense of nature as the means of communication with creative spirit/God. - Individual, intu
15、itive knowledge of a divine spirit, revealed through nature. Direct contact between individual consciousness and the benevolent divine spirit in nature. Project to improve the moral nature of the individual - and consequently, society - through sympathetic contact with the natural world and ongoing
16、reflection on that experience. Need for ongoing reflection and contemplation of the inner self, in moments of tranquillity and solitariness. Influenced by British and German Romanticism: Goethe, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Thomas Carlyle (Emerson met Coleridge, Wordsworth and Carlyle during a visit to Br
17、itain in 1832, before he wrote Nature.) Also influenced by Eastern philosophy from Hinduism and from Confucius. The natural world away from crowds and distractions an agent for all of the above.,Transcendentalist Principles,“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as co
18、ntrasted with freedom and culture merely civil, - to regard man as an inhabitant, or part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of a society.” Henry David Thoreau, Walking (began as a lecture, delivered at the Concord Lyceum on April 23, 1851 and subsequently in other locations. The lecture eve
19、ntually became an essay published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862 after Thoreaus death.),Original Title Page- showing hut, trees and path,(The Image above and photographs on following slides are from : http:/thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html),Location of Thoreaus hut (2005 photo),1908 photograph of
20、the pond, from near the hut. There were fewer trees then and in Thoreaus time than now.,We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. . . I went to the woods because I wished to
21、 live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. (Ch. 2 Where I lived, and what I lived for ) We need the tonic of wilderness - to wade sometimes in the marshes where the bitt
22、ern and the meadow hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wild and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all
23、 things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us, because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. Henry David Thoreau, Walden, (Ch. 17, Spring),Walden and Nature,Time and society in Walden,The railroad is symbolic of - and a meta
24、phor for - the machine-like nature of modern life, always rushing from somewhere to somewhere else and casting people aside as it does so. Thoreau bought his hut from an Irish railway worker. Here are some examples of how the railroad features in Walden : I should not need to look farther than to th
25、e shanties which everywhere border our railroads, that last improvement in civilization; where I see in my daily walks human beings living in sties, and all winter with an open door, for the sake of light, without any visible, often imaginable, wood-pile (Ch. 1 Economy). We do not ride on the railro
26、ad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them (Ch. 2 Where I Lived and what I lived for). I have my horizon
27、bounded by woods all to myself; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it
28、were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself (Ch. 5 Solitude) (Continued on next slide),Walden emphasizes the disparity between Native American time, which is in tune with the natural rhythms of nature, and white American East-coast time, which operates according to the arti
29、ficial rhythms of work, news bulletins, and railroad timetables. The narrator also explores the relativity of al human time according to cultural understanding. Edgar Allan Poe in an 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell: “ Man is now only more active not more happy nor more wise, than he was 6,000 ye
30、ars ago.” “There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognise the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all his own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.” Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience,” after 1848 lecture a
31、t Concord. Published in the transcendentalist periodical Aesthetic Papers (also contained essays by Emerson, Hawthorne, Fuller and Elizabeth Peabody.,“I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence which sk
32、irts the woodland road on the other” (Ch. 5 Solitude ). “This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I come and go with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself” (Ch. 5 Solitude ). “Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Mi
33、lky Way?” (Ch. 5 Solitude ). “I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. I love to be alone” (Ch. 5 Solitude. “We meet at
34、 the post-office, and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night. We live thick and are in each others way, and stumble over one another. Consider the girls in a factory they are never alone, hardly in their dreams” (Ch. 5 Solitude ).,“I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed b
35、y a sense of solitude, but once . . . but I was at the same time conscious of a slight insanity in my mod, and seemed to forsee my recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in nature” (Ch. 5 Solitude ). “the i
36、ndescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature; of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter (Ch. 5 Solitude).“It is as much Asia or Africa, as New England” (Ch. 5 Solitude ).,The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter such health, such c
37、heer, they afford forever! and such sympathy have they ever with our race, that all Nature would be affected, and the suns brightness fade, and the winds would sigh humanely, and the clouds rain tears, and the woods shed their leaves and put on mourning in midsummer, if any man should ever for a jus
38、t cause grieve. Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself? ( Ch. 5 Solitude),From Ch. 12 “Brute Neighbors”,Hermit. I wonder what the world is doing now. I have not heard so much as a locust over the sweet-fern these three hours. The pigeons are a
39、ll asleep upon their roosts - no flutter from them. Was that a farmers noon horn which sounded from beyond the woods just now? The hands are coming in to boiled salt beef and cider and Indian bread. Why will men worry themselves so? He that does not eat need not work. I wonder how much they have rea
40、ped. Who would live there where a body can never think for the barking of Bose? And oh, the housekeeping! to keep bright the devils door-knobs, and scour his tubs this bright day! Better not keep a house. Say, some hollow tree; and then for morning calls and dinner-parties! Only a woodpecker tapping
41、. Oh, they swarm; the sun is too warm there; they are born too far into life for me. I have water from the spring, and a loaf of brown bread on the shelf. - Hark! I hear a rustling of the leaves. Is it some ill-fed village hound yielding to the instinct of the chase? or the lost pig which is said to
42、 be in these woods, whose tracks I saw after the rain? It comes on apace; my sumachs and sweetbriers tremble. - Eh, Mr. Poet, is it you? How do you like the world to-day? Poet. See those clouds; how they hang! Thats the greatest thing I have seen to-day. Theres nothing like it in old paintings, noth
43、ing like it in foreign lands - unless when we were off the coast of Spain. Thats a true Mediterranean sky. I thought, as I have my living to get, and have not eaten to-day, that I might go a-fishing. Thats the true industry for poets. It is the only trade I have learned. Come, lets along.,The Ant Wa
44、r in Brute Neighbors- an extended simile based on classical literature, USING LITERARY CONVENTIONS TO reflecT on war - ancient, more recent, and univerSAL,It was evident that their battle-cry was “Conquer or die.“ In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evi
45、dently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and
46、had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. The Trojan War is the conflict referred to here. The literary allusion is to Homers Iliad and Odyssey as well a to Virgils Aeneid. Classical literature in general is invoked, and the motif of the shield alludes to the contrast/conflict between the Spar
47、tans and the Athenians. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moments comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an A
48、usterlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick - “Fire! for Gods sake fire!“ - and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they foug
49、ht for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least. The battles referred to here are from the Napoleonic Wars (Austerlitz and Dresden) and the American War of Independence (Bunker Hill). The American War of Independence/Revolutionary War began near to Walden Pond with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775.,From Conclusion,
