关于瓦尔登湖中大卫梭罗的自然观分析

I. Introduction
A. About the author Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817. His father, John, was a pencil maker. Thoreau studied at Harvard University between 1833 and1837. In 1837, he worked as a pencil maker with his father, a handyman, a farmer, yet was at the same time an accomplished Greek scholar.
Henry David Thoreau was a complex man of many talents who worked hard to shape his craft and his life, seeing little difference between them. One of his first memories was of staying awake at night “looking through the stars to see i f I could see God behind them.” One might say he never stopped looking into nature for ultimate Truth.
Henry grew up very close to his older brother John, who taught school to help pay for Henry’s tuition at Harvard. While there, Henry read a small book by his Concord neighbor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, and in a sense he never finished exploring its ideas—although always definitely on his own terms, just as he explored everything! He and his brother taught school for a while but in 1842, John cut himself while shaving and died of lockjaw in his brother’s arms, an untimely death which traumatized the 25-year-old Henry. He worked for several years as a surveyor making pencils with his father, but at the age of 28 in 1845, wanting to write his first book, he went to Walden Pond and built his cabin on land owned by Emerson.
While at Walden, Thoreau did an incredible amount of reading and writing, yet he also spent much time sauntering in nature. He gave a lecture and was imprisoned briefly for not
paying his poll tax, but mostly he wrote a book as a memorial to a river trip he had taken with his brother, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.
After two years, Thoreau returned to Concord—a bare two miles away which he had visited frequently during his stay at the pond, having completed his experiment in living and his book. Unfortunately, few people were interested in purchasing his book, so he spent the next nine years, surveying and making pencils at times but primarily writing and rewriting Walden before trying to publish it. He supported himself by surveying and making a few lectures, often on his experience at Walden Pond. He traveled often, to the Maine woods and to Cape Cod several times, and was particularly interested in the frontier and Indians. He opposed the government for waging the Mexican war eloquently in Resistance to Civil Government, based on his brief experience in jail, he lectured against slavery in an abolitionist lecture, Slavery in Massachusetts.He even supported John Brown’s efforts to end slavery after meeting him in Concord, as in A Plea for Captain John Brown.
Thoreau died of tuberculosis in 1862, at the age of 44. His last words were said to be “Moose” and “Indian”. Not only did he leave his two books and numerous essays, but he also left a huge Journal published later in 20 volumes, which may have been his major work-in-progress. Many memorials were penned by his friends, including Emerson’s eulogy and Louisa May Alcott’s poem, “Thorea u’s Flute.”
Henry David Thoreau was a great American writer of transcendentalism in the 19th century, and now is the first major writer describing nature in American literature history. His understanding of nature is unprecedented in American literature. T horeau’s lifelong devotion
to his profession of description of nature in works like Walden makes him a simple of culture for modern Americans, even the whole world. In a sense, Henry David Thoreau stands in a long tradition of forming selves and voices in his writing. Often known as an American poet, essayist and philosopher, Thoreau lives out the tenets of Transcendentalism and recounts the experience in his Walden. He is one of the few American authors that have been admired or critiqued globally. In 1995, Walter Harding turned out an article titled ‘‘Thoreau’s Reputation’’ trying to render a panoramic view of how Thoreau had been perceived in a world other than the United States.
B. About the work Walden
When Walden was published in 1854, it was not well accepted by people. Instead it was regarded as “wicked and heathenish”. It was published only the time until Thoreau died of disease. But many years later especially in twentieth century, it was gradually known and appreciated by lots of readers all over the world.
Walden emphasizes the importance of self-reliance, solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature. The book is neither a novel nor a true autobiography, but combines these genres with a social critique and materialist attitudes. The book is not simply a criticism of society, but also an attempt to engage creatively with the better aspects of contemporary culture is suggested both by his proximity to Concord society and by his admiration for classical literature. There are signs of ambiguity, or an attempt to see an alternative side of something common—the sound of a passing locomotive, for example, is compared to natural sounds.
Walden is believed to have been inspired by American Transcendentalism, a philosophy developed by Thoreau’s friend and spiritual mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson owned the land on which Thoreau built his cabin at Walden Pond, and Thoreau used to walk over to Emerson’s house for a meal and a conversation. Thoreau regarded his sojourn at Walden as a noble experiment with a threefold purpose. It should come as no surprise that Walden is now an icon for environmentalists, and a touchstone for Americans seeking to “get in touch with nature.”
Ⅱ. Analysis of Henry David Thoreau’s view of nature
A. The influence of society
In the history of American literature there is no stronger tie between a writer and a place than the tie between Thoreau and Concord Massachusetts．Thoreau has rived all his life in Concord which provides him with natural surroundings and social background．Moreover, Thoreau develops his deep friendship with Emerson here, which proves to influence Thoreau’s literary writing to a large extent．They all contribute to the formation of Thoreau’s view of nature. Thoreau’s love for nature can be traced back to his childhood in Concord. Thoreau is a passionate outdoors man from childhood. As Leon Bazalgette describes: “All Concord is spread out on his lap like a great book full of pictures and songs.”As a boy, Thoreau walked on the sunny meadows, swam in the clear rivers and ponds, picked huckleberries in the hills and fields, and played games in the quiet woods. All these gave him a sense of profound pleasure in nature with which he could never keep away. As time passed by, he was familiar with every sight in Concord. Emerson comments: “He chose wisely no doubt for himself to be the bachelor of thought and nature. His eyes were open to beauty, and his ears to music. He found these not in rare conditions, but wherever he went.” As a result, “He knew every track in the snow or on the ground and what creature had taken his path before him.” Just as he saw the day as all epitome of the year, he saw Concord an epitome of the world. By centering his eyes on Concord, Thoreau grasped the beauty of whole nature. Moreover, this experience prepared for his later scientific natural observation.
To some extent，Concord is concerned with every important aspect of Thoreau’s life and
works．He lived there, worked there and as Emerson said in Thoreau:“ Thoreau dedicated his genius with such entire love to the fields，hills，and waters of his native town, that he made it known and interesting to an reading Americans, and to people over the sea.”
B. The influence of Walden
1. Far from the city
In t he long history of human beings’development, they always tried to break away from the constraint of nature. This gradually came to be true after the first Industrial Revolution. Many new scientific inventions, such as the steam-powered engines, steam-ship, railroad, and telegraphy, were developed. These were the most striking and revolutionary inventions in the mid-19th century. It is obvious that Thoreau feared that science and technology would gradually become a weapon for people to exploit nature and a monster of inward intrusion and destruction to human life.
In the eyes of most people, nature only had economic value and recreational value. Obviously, they were in conflict with nature, which was regarded as an inanimate object without any emotion. They only thought of how they could exploit nature and make it serve their purposes. The forest thus became the raw material for meeting people’s demands for food, clothing and shelter. Thoreau believed that for those who only sought to occupy all the natural resources had been dehumanized and could not enjoy the real scent of nature.
At Walden Thoreau can be close to the nature, consider about the nature without disturbing of the city. He likes the way of life. More importan t he didn’t want the prosperous
city to destroy his beautiful nature in his heat.
2. Life in the woods
In autumn, Thoreau cultivates beans, observes Walden Pond. In winter, the Walden Pond freeze, lots of animals accompanies with him. As spring’s coming, the Walden and other ponds melt. Every thing in nature is awake and reborn including Thoreau. He lives alone in the woods, he is close to nature and makes himself as a part of nature. He lives alone, but sometimes he also talks with his visitors who are honest, sincere, thinkable and loving their life. In the woods life is quite. When he lives in the woods, he can listen to animals’ sounds such as bird’s singing, owl’s hooting, cockerel’s crowing etc. He lives with animals friendly. He also describes the Walden Pond. The water, blue and green, clear and pure, freezes in winter and melts in spring.
By living at Walden, Thoreau holds close communion with nature, and experiences his simple life in nature. Meanwhile, he cultivates his lifelong interest: sauntering in nature, studying and writing about it. Thus we can gain this classic Walden, which records his natural life and reflects on how to maintain a balance between man and nature. While Thoreau was intoxicated by the beauty of Walden, Thoreau experienced his simple life, purified his mind and had a good harvest for works. During the 26 months he stayed at Walden, Thoreau led a life free of materialistic pursuits reduced his material requirements to the minimum and tried to be self-sufficient in everything. He spent about six weeks a year planting beans etc., but writing and enjoying nature most of the time for the rest of the year.
C. The influence on himself
1. The love of nature
At Walden, Thoreau is in such a humorous relationship with animals. His exposure to nature and his sensuous contact with it gives him a sense of kinship as wide as all outdoors. He declares that he does not consider the other animals’ brutes in the common sense. The muskrat is his brother, the skunk a lowly human being, the bream his contemporary and his neighbor, the plants of Concord his co-inhabitants; even the stars he calls his fellow-creatures. They are part of nature. Take mice for example, mice choose to be his neighbors without any wariness. He is sometimes like a little boy, playing games with the mouse that lives under his floor and watching it with great zest. In Thoreau’s words:“when at last I held still a piece of cheese between my thumb and finger, it came and nibbled it, sitting in my hand, and afterward cleaned its f ace and paws, like a fly, and walked away.” Thoreau holds the view that people have the responsibility to live harmoniously with nature, to be part and parcel of nature. In nature’s embrace, man is healthy both physically and psychologically.” The most sweet and tender the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man.
2. The pursuit of inner peace
In the industrial civilization, human beings were estranged from life. They were indifferent, numb and insensible to life, no matter what it was—man or nature. Thoreau saw people’s real life worn out in the pursuit of money and devastation of the ecology of nature. He felt heartache and anxiety for it. Therefore, he actively tried t o awaken people’s life
consciousness and proposed to revere, value and love all the life in the universe. Thoreau positively practiced his ideal in reality. First, he showed his great concern about nature. Since the enlightenment age, nature is perceived as neutral, disenchanted and essentially pure matter, structured according to laws and capable of being known through a mathematically formulated universal science. It has no intrinsic significance. It is, therefore, open to manipulation and alteration.
In conclusion, I would like to quote from Lawrence Buell: “Thoreau’s career in pursuit of nature thus became one of fitful, irregular, experimental, although increasingly purposeful, self-education in reading landscape and pondering the significance of what he found there.’’
Ⅲ. Conclusion
Thoreau’s Walden i s considered as a work of epoch—making significance in that it contains profound ecological and spiritual implications rather than describes the natural beauty of landscapes as the works of nature writing before. During the development of ecological movement since the beginning of 20th century, Walden has been highly praised, and now it has been respected as the green Bible. As a keen observer of nature, Thoreau discovered the inner close connection of nature and human race, opposed what people had done to nature and warned that people should deal with wilderness kindly. His ideas about the relationship between nature and human beings foresaw the rising of environmental problems that people would come across in the course of social development. In Thoreau’s time, the disasters caused by destructive ecological system was not obvious, but today various environmental problems have arisen and seriously affected people’s everyday life. Facing them, people had to take a new view about nature. From this point we can see that after Thoreau’s death that the word “ecology” w as created. It is no wonder that Thoreau is considered as “the ecologist before ecology”. His rich ecological thoughts written in Walden are a great spiritual wealth to the society. It fostered a great number of brave ecological fighters such as John Muir Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, all of whom did much contribution to wakening up people’s environmental awareness.
Nowadays we have a deep concern for the deterioration of our environment. Ecologists and environmentalists throughout the world are endeavoring to protect what is left on this planet for us. Meanwhile, modem people suffering stresses and strains of modem life are
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trying their best to seek relief from “desperate life”. It is this universal concern for nature that makes Walden no longer just a prose work. Thoreau wrote, but a symbol where in we discover a mode of living, a roman with nature, a pursuit of all ideal life, and finally, all eternal and universal wish of mankind to be near nature.
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