Henry David Thoreau

1. Henry David Thoreau 1817- 1862

2. Henry David Thoreau(1817- 1862) • an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, sage writer and philosopher. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings.

3. Henry David Thoreau(1817- 1862) • Life • Works • Walden

4. Life • Born in a common family in New England • Graduated from Harvard, but only stayed at home and helped family business • A friend of Emerson • Active in social life and had a strong sense of justice (Example: He once refused to pay a poll-tax of 2 dollars because he felt the tax was unfair, and thus he was jailed. And later he wrote an essay named "Civil Disobedience" which advocated passive resistance to unjust laws and influenced Gandhi in India.(甘地的非暴力不合作运动) • not successful as a writer and lived in obscurity all his life

5. Life • Born on July 12, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts. • Grew up in Concord and attended Harvard, where he was known as a serious though unconventional scholar. During his Harvard years he was exposed to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who later became his chief instructor and friend.

6. After graduation, Thoreau worked for a time in his father’s pencil shop and taught at a grammar school, but in 1841 he was invited to live in the Emerson household, where he remained intermittently(间歇地) until 1843. He served as handyman and assistant to Emerson, helping to edit and contributing poetry and prose to the transcendentalist magazine, The Dial.

7. In 1845 Thoreau built himself a small cabin on the shore of Walden Pond, near Concord; there he remained for more than two years, “living deep and sucking out all the marrow (骨髓;髓) of life.” Wishing to lead a life free of materialistic pursuits, he supported himself by growing vegetables and by doing odd jobs(零工,零活儿) in the nearby village.

8. He devoted most of his time to observing nature, reading, and writing, and he kept a detailed journal of his observations, activities, and thoughts. It was from this journal that he later distilled (蒸馏) his masterpiece, Walden. One of Thoreau’s most important works, the essay “Civil Disobedience” (1849), grew out of an overnight stay in prison as a result of his refusal to pay a poll tax(人头税) that supported the Mexican War.

9. Thoreau’s advocacy of civil disobedience as a means for the individual to protest those actions of his government that he considers unjust has had a wide-ranging impact—on the British Labour movement, the passive resistance independence movement led by Gandhi in India, and the non-violent civil-rights movement led by Martin Luther King in the United States. 梭罗的文章简练有力，朴实自然，富有思想内容，在美国19世纪散文中独树一帜。他的思想对英国工党、印度的甘地与美国黑人领袖马丁.路德.金等人都有很大影响。

10. Evaluation He became one of the three great American authors of the 19th century who had not contemporary readers and yet became great in this century, the other two being Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson. His influence goes beyond America. His statue was placed in the Hall of Fame(名人纪念馆) in New York in 1969 alongside those of other great Americans. Thoreau has been regarded as a prophet (先知)of individualism in American literature. He was very critical of modern civilization. “Civilized man is the salve of matter.”

11. Works (Selected) • A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, 1849 • Civil Disobedience 1849 • Walden; or, Life in the Woods, 1854

12. Walden • Background information • Synopsis (contents) • Themes

13. Comment on Walden Between the end of March 1845 and July 4, Thoreau constructed a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond, near Concord. There he lived alone until September 1847, supplying his needs by his own labor and developing and testing his transcendental philosophy of individualism, self-reliance and material economy for the sake of spiritual wealth. He sought to reduce his physical needs to a minimum, in order to free himself for study, thought, and observation of nature, himself. Therefore his cabin was a simple room and he wore the cheapest essential clothing and restricted his diet to what he found.

14. Walden can be many things and can be read on more than one level. But it is, first and foremost, a book about man, what he is, and what he should be and must be. • Thoreau has faith in the inner virtue and inward, spiritual grace of man. He holds that the most important thing for men to do with their lives is to be self-sufficient and strive to achieve person spiritual perfection.

15. Considered one of the all-time great books, Walden is a record of Thoreau's two year experiment of living at Walden Pond. The writer's chief emphasis is on the simplifications and enjoyment of life now. It is regarded as 1. a nature book. 2. a do-it-yourself guide to simple life. 3. a satirical criticism of modern life and living. 4. a belletristic (纯文学) achievement. 5. a spiritual book.

16. Background information about Walden A reproduction of Thoreau's cabin with a statue of Thoreau

17. Background information about Walden • The book details Thoreau's sojourn in a cabin near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts. • Thoreau did not intend to live as a hermit, for he received visitors and returned their visits. Instead, he hoped to isolate himself from society in order to gain a more objective understanding of it. • Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreau's other goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, which was one of the key ideas of the American Romantic Period. As Thoreau made clear in his book, his cabin was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, not far from his family home.

18. Synopsis (contents) • Economy • This is the first chapter and also the longest by far. Thoreau begins by outlining his project: a two-year and two-month stay at a crude cabin in the woods near Walden Pond. He does this, he says, in order to illustrate the spiritual benefits of a simplified lifestyle. He easily supplies the four necessities of life (food, shelter, clothing, and fuel). He meticulously records his expenditures and earnings, demonstrating his understanding of "economy," as he builds his house and buys and grows food. For a home and freedom, he spends a mere $28.13. • Complementary Verses • This chapter consists entirely of a poem, "The Pretensions of Poverty," by seventeenth-century English poet Thomas Carew. The poem criticizes those who think that their poverty gives them unearned moral and intellectual superiority.

19. Synopsis (contents) • Where I Lived, and What I Lived For • After playing with the idea of buying a farm, Thoreau describes his cabin's location. Then he explains that he took up his abode at Walden Woods so as to "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." • Reading • Thoreau provides discourse on the benefits of reading classical literature (preferably in the original Greek or Latin) and bemoans the lack of sophistication in Concord, manifested in the popularity of popular literature. He yearns for a utopian time when each New England village will support "wise men" to educate and thereby ennoble the population.

20. Synopsis (contents) • Sounds • Thoreau opens this chapter by warning against relying too much on literature as a means of transcendence. Instead, one should experience life for oneself. Thus, after describing his cabin's beautiful natural surroundings and his casual housekeeping habits, Thoreau goes on to criticize the train whistle that interrupts his reverie. To him, the railroad symbolizes the destruction of the good old pastoral way of life. Following is a description of the sounds audible from his cabin: the church bells ringing, carriages rattling and rumbling, cows lowing, whip-poor-wills singing, owls hooting, frogs croaking, and cockerels crowing. • Solitude • Thoreau rhapsodizes about the beneficial effects of living solitary and close to nature. He loves to be alone, for "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude," and he is never lonely as long as he is close to nature. He believes there is no great value to be had by rubbing shoulders with the mass of humanity.

21. Synopsis (contents) • Visitors • Thoreau writes about the visitors to his cabin. Among the 25 or 30 visitors is a young French-Canadian woodchopper, Alec Therien, whom Thoreau idealizes as approaching the ideal man, and a runaway slave, whom Thoreau helps on his journey to freedom in Canada. • The Bean-Field • Thoreau relates his efforts to cultivate two and a half acres of beans. He plants in June and spends his summer mornings weeding the field with a hoe. He sells most of the crop, and his small profit of $8.71 covers his needs. • The Village • Thoreau visits the small town of Concord every day or two to hear the In late summer, he is arrested for refusing to pay federal taxes, but is released the next day. He explains that he refuses to pay taxes to a government that supports slavery.

22. Synopsis (contents) • Baker Farm • While on an afternoon ramble in the woods, Thoreau gets caught in a rainstorm and takes shelter in the dirty, dismal hut of John Field, a penniless but hard-working Irish farmhand, and his wife and children. Thoreau urges Field to live a simple but independent and fulfilling life in the woods, thereby freeing himself of employers and creditors. But the Irishman won't give up his dreams of luxury, which is the American dream. • Higher Laws • Thoreau discusses whether hunting wild animals and eating meat is good. He concludes that the primitive, animal side of humans drives them to kill and eat animals, and that a person who transcends this propensity is superior to those who don't. (Thoreau eats fish.) In addition to vegetarianism, he lauds chastity, work, and teetotalism.

23. Synopsis (contents) • Brute Neighbors • Thoreau briefly discusses the many wild animals that are his neighbors at Walden. A description of the nesting habits of partridges is followed by a fascinating account of a massive battle between red and black ants. Three of the combatants he takes into his cabin and examines them under a microscope as the black ant kills the two smaller red ones. Later, Thoreau takes his boat and tries to follow a teasing loon about the pond. • House-Warming • After picking November berries in the woods, Thoreau bestirs himself to add a chimney and plaster the walls of his hut in order to stave off the cold of the oncoming winter. He also lays in a good supply of firewood, and expresses affection for wood and fire.

24. Synopsis (contents) • Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors • Thoreau relates the stories of people who formerly lived in the vicinity of Walden Pond. Then he talks about the few visitors he receives during the winter: a farmer, a woodchopper, and a poet (Ellery Channing). • Winter Animals • Thoreau amuses himself by watching wildlife during the winter. He relates his observations of owls, hares, red squirrels, mice, and various birds as they hunt, sing, and eat the scraps and corn he put out for them. He also describes a fox hunt that passes by.

25. Synopsis (contents) • Spring • As spring arrives, Walden and the other ponds melt with stentorian thundering and rumbling. Thoreau enjoys watching the thaw, and grows ecstatic as he witnesses the green rebirth of nature. He watches the geese winging their way north, and a hawk playing by itself in the sky. As nature is reborn, the narrator implies, so is he. He departs Walden on September 8, 1847. • Conclusion • This final chapter is more passionate and urgent than its predecessors. In it, he criticizes conformity: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." By doing these things, men may find happiness and self-fulfillment.

26. Themes Walden emphasizes the importance of self-reliance, solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature .

27. The End