常耀信美国文学知识点

Introduction
1. The Youngest National Literature
1781 (Independence War) --- 2012= about 200 years
2. Great achievement: 1930-1980, nine American writers won the Nobel Prize
The Periods of American Literature
1.The colonial period (约1607 - 1765)
2. The period of enlightenment and Independence War (1765-1800)
3. The romantic period (1800 - 1865)
4. The realistic period (1865 - 1914)
5. The period of modernism (1914 - 1945)
6. The Contemporary Literature (1945 -)
Chapter I Colonial America
American Puritanism
❖1. The beliefs and practices characteristic of Puritans(most of whom were Calvinists who wished to purify the Church of England of its Catholic aspects)
❖2. Strictness and austerity in conduct and religion
Puritans’ religio us belief: Calvinism
◆John Calvin, the great French theologian.
The principal concepts:
1) Original sin and total depravity.
2) Predestination
3) Salvation of selected few
❖◆ The Puritans carried with them to America a code of values, a philosophy of life, and a point of view, which, in time, took root in the New world and became what is known as American Puritanism. (p11)
The Influence of Puritanism on American Literature
1) Idealism（optimism）
2) Symbolism
3) Simplicity in writing
Significance of Puritanism
❖With time passing it became a dominant factor in American life, one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American Literature. To some extent it is a state of mind, a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes, rather than a set of tenets.
Time: From the arrival of the first settlers in the early 17th century to the end of the 18th century
Literary Features
1. Forms
Personal literature in various forms --- diaries, histories, common books (札记)，journals, letters, travel books, sermons etc.
2. Content
1) practical matter-of-fact accounts of farming, hunting, travel, etc. designed to inform people “at home” what life was
like in the new world
2) highly theoretical discussions of religious questions.
3. Style
In Style, English literary traditions were imitated and transplanted.
Early writers in the colonial period
❖John Smith, a captain, one of the founders of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia; the writer of A Description of New England.
❖William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth Plantation, his writing: Of Plymouth Plantation (P16)
❖John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, In his famous speech A Model of Christian Charity ,he states that there was a agreement between God and his people of building a new Garden of Eden in the new world. (P17)
Therefore let us choose life, 所以，让我们选择生活，
that we and our seed 这样，我们和我们的后代，
may live by obeying His 可以听从上帝的声音，
voice and cleaving to Him, 须臾不离上帝，
for He is our life and 因为，上帝是我们的生命，
our prosperity. 我们的兴旺
___John Winthrop (1588-1649)
Major writers in the period
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Philip Freneau (1752-1832)
Charles Brockden Brown
Anne Bradstreet(1617-1672)
1. Life and Works
Her first volume: The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America 《美洲最近出现的第十个谬斯》
She was known as the “Tenth Muse”
2. Major contents of her poetry
❖Description of the early settlers’ life in the new world e.g. “As Weary Pilgrim”
❖Poems about the justice of God’s way with His Puritan flock; in search of man’s nature and destiny and his mission in the new world. e.g. “Upon the Burning of Our House”
❖Poems to her husband and her children. e.g. “To My Dear and Loving Husband”
❖《我侬词》管道升
❖你侬我侬，忒煞情多；情多处，热似火；把一块泥，捻一个你，塑一个我。

将咱两个一齐打破，用水调和；再捻一个你，再塑一个我。

我泥中有你，你泥中有我：我与你生同一个衾，死同一个椁。

Characteristics of her poetry
❖singularly puritan mode of perception; imitation of Spenser and the French poet Bartas.
Contemplations (9)
❖The poem P17-18
❖Comment on the poem: (p18) When she heard the grasshopper and the cricket sing, she thought of this as their praising Creator and searched her own soul accordingly. It is evident that she saw something metaphysical inhering in the physical,
a mode of perception which was singularly Puritan.
Edward Taylor
❖His poetic style: In his elaborate metaphors, he is like the English metaphysical poets, such as John Donne and George Herbert.
❖His poetic content: He was first and last, a Puritan poet, concerned about how his images speak for God.
Huswifery《家务》P19
❖Metaphor: Spinning wheel in the control of the housewife is just like the Christians in the obedience of God.
❖The theme of the poem: If you give your life over to god and make him your center, you will be accepted joyfully into His kingdom.
Writers writing for religious freedom and American independence
Roger Williams (1603-1683)
“the first rebel against the divine church order in the wilderness” (Cotto n Mather)
❖“The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience” (1644): attacking the religious conformity and upholding the spiritual freedom of the individual
John Woolman (1720-1772)
A Quaker(“inner right”—convinced that true religion consisted in inward life); attacking all forms of iniquity, pleading for the rights of all men and for the abolition of the slavery system:
❖“some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes”
❖“A Plea for the Poor”
❖Journal: recording his spiritual experiences of inward communication with God.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
coming to America at 37 with the letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin; an unflinching fighter for the rights of man; participating in the French Revolution; die in poverty in NY.
❖His great gift as a stylist was “plainness”: It is my design to make those who can scarcely read understand.
❖Common Sense
❖American Crisis
❖Rights of Man
❖The Age of Reason
Philip Freneau (1752-1832)
❖“Poet of the American Revolution’’the first professional American novelist
❖The first American-born poet (the most significant poet of eighteenth-century America);
❖notable mainly for two things: using his poetic talents serving the national independence; advocating nationalism in
American literature.
❖Works:
❖The Rising Glory of America(1772)
❖The Jamaica Funeral
❖The British Prison Ship(1781)
❖To the Memory of the Brave Americans (1781)
❖The Wild Honey Suckle (1786)
❖The Indian Burying Ground (1788)
❖Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810)
❖Wieland (1798), Edgar Huntly (1799), Arthur Mervyn (1799-1800), and Ormond (1799),
❖Subjects about the new world
❖Description of his characters’ inner world
Early American Fiction
Modes of early American fiction:
❖Epistolary fiction: The Power of Sympathy (1789) William Hill Brown
❖Sentimental fiction: Charlotte Temple (1791) Susanna Rowson
❖Picaresque and adventure fiction: Modern Chivalry (1792-1815) Hugh Henry Brackenridge
❖Gothic fiction: Wieland (1798) Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810)
Conclusion：
❖In all, as to the development of American literature, the following two centuries since the arrival the Mayflower were still
a process of groping for literary expression of the national experiences. The literary scene still looked bleak and barren,
however, the 18th century saw the emergence of two famous writers who would exercise seminal influence on the maturity of American literature, Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards.
Chapter Two Period of Enlightenment
1. Historical Background
⑴ American Revolution
(2)Enlightenment (启蒙运动)
Originated in Europe in the 17th century
Resources: Newton’s theory; deism（自然神教派，）; French philosophy (Rousseau, Voltaire)
Deism
God --- the Creator of the world, then leaving it to operate according to natural law.
The best way to worship God --- Study man and nature instead of God, to do good things to mankind.
Man is by nature good and free. Man could “perfect himself” and could decide his own destiny.
Basic principles: stressing education; stressing Reason (Order) ；employing Reason to reconsider the traditions and social realities; concerns for civil rights, such as equality and social justice.
Significance: accelerating social progress; freeing people from the limitations set by prevailing Puritanism; making spiritual preparation for American Revolution
Representatives: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson etc.
Jonathan Edwards (1703—1758)
（the first modern American and the country’s last medieval man）
In 1716, at the age of 13, admitted to Yale, graduated four years later
In 1723, took his M.A. in Yale
In 1729, after 3 years assistant to his grandfather, named to be the minister of the church of Northampton
Instrumental in bringing about the “Great Awakening” from1730s to 1740s
Died of a smallpox inoculation in 1758
“never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way”
Major Works
The Freedom of the Will (1754)
The Great doctrine of Original Sin Defended (1758)
The Nature of True Virtue (1765)
Personal Narrative
Analysis
Influenced by the new ideas of Enlightenment, such as empiricism
Still a pious Puritan
His sense of God’s overwhelming presence in nature and in soul anticipated the Transcendentalism.
First modern American and the coun try’s last medieval man
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Life—Jack of all trades
Born in a poor candle maker’s family in Boston
No regular education
Became a apprentice of a printer when he was 12
A editor of a newspaper and published lots of essays when he was 16
Went to Philadelphia when he was 17
A successful printer and publisher
Retired when he was 42
A scientist with lots of inventions and a famous experiment
A famous statesman (the only America who once signed all the four documents that created the new country) (P33)
An example who made American Dream come true
Literary works
Poor Richard’s Almanac《穷查理的年历》
He kept publishing it for 25 years.
A popular almanac with poems, essays and a good many of sayings
He made good use of his own wit and wisdom in the borrowed statements.
➢Maxims（谚语，格言）and axioms（哲理，格言）
➢Lost time is never found again.
➢ A penny saved is a penny earned.
➢God help them that help themselves.
➢Fish and visitors stink in three days.
➢Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
➢Eat not to dullness. Drink not to elevation.
➢Diligence is the Mother of Good Luck.
➢One Today is worth two tomorrow.
➢Industry pays debts. Despair encreaseth them.
The Autobiography— first of its kind in literature
Writing when he was 65
An introduction of his life to his own son
Including four parts written in different time (1771. 1784, 1788, 1790)
Puritanism’s influence, such as self-examination and self-improvement (timetable, thirteen virtues, life style) Enlightenment spirits (man’s nature good, rights of liberty, virtues includes “order”)
A brief analysis of Autobiography
1) as a Puritan document with a record of self-analysis and self-improvement
eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation; avoiding trifling conversation; let all your things have their places; lose no time; wastes nothing; resolve to perform what you o ught; use no deceit; wrong none…
13 virtues
1. Temperance
2. Silence
3. Order
4. Resolution
5. Frugality
6. Industry
7. Sincerity
8. Justice 9. Moderation 10. Cleanliness 11. Tranquility 12. Chastity 13. Humility
2) as an elucidation of Franklin’s identity as a spokesman for the Age of Enlightenment
Man by nature is good and free; a record of the fulfillment of the American dream;
the spirit of self-reliance and self-improvement .
3)as an exemplary illustration of American style of writing simplicity, directness, concision, lucid narrative, etc.
Crevecoeur
Crevecoeur’s idea of “new man” in America.(p37-38), the fulfillment of the American Dream
The illusory nature of the Dream
American Romanticism
Introduction
•Time: From the end of the 18th century throughout the outbreak of the Civil war
•(The Sketch Book by Irving---Leaves of Grass by Whitman)
Reasons for the rising of American Romanticism
1. The internal cause
1) The optimistic mood of the nation following the national political independence inspired the romantic feeling and cried
for literary expression.
2) The fertile literary milieu. A media for people to express their opinions.
2. The external cause
The influences of the European romanticism (Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Byron, etc.)
Features of American Romanticism
•Both imitative and independent
1. American Romanticism is imitative.
1) American romantic writing was modeled on English and European works (Writers of imitative school: Irving and New
England poets p43)
2) Common features due to foreign influences: Emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature,
individualism, interest to the past, love of nature, etc.
3) The favorite themes: home, family and children, nature, and idealized love. indifferent to the major problems American life…(p43)
2. American Romanticism is Independent.
Distinct features of its own
1) New spirit and alien quality
The exotic landscape
Westward expansion
The Indian civilization
The new spirit of the new men
(p38 Crevecoeur’s idea of new man)
2) Puritan influence (p42)
American Romantic authors intended to moralize more than entertain the readers
Taboos in American works--- e.g. sex and love
The mark of Calvinistic view of original sin and the mystery of evil in some works
3) Writers of independent school (p44)
A calling for the creation of a native American culture and literature (Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, etc.)
Washington Irving (1783-1859)Father of American Literature
Biographical Notes
•New York merchant family (1783)
•first book (1809)
•England (1815)
•American diplomatic attaché to Spain (1826-1829)
•Secretary of the United States Legation in London (1829-1832)
•Returne d to America (1932) and began to live in his “Sunnyside” to the rest of his life
•died in 1859
Historical significance of Irving (p45)
1. Father of American literature
2. The author of the first American short stories
3. His The Sketch Book marked the beginning of American Romanticism
Two periods of literary career
A. The 1st period (1809-1832)
Predominantly “English”, writing about subjects either English or European; found value in the past and in the traditions of the old world, depicted “ruins” and objects of antiquity.
Major works of the 1st period
A History of New York (1809)
The Sketch Book (1815)
The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1825)
A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (1829)
The Alhambra (1832)
B. The 2nd period (1833-1859)
Found new spirit of America, writing about the American beauty and experience, such as westward expansion Major works of the 2nd period
A Tour on the Prairies(1835);
Astoria(1836);
Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837)
Life of Goldsmith
Life of Washington
Features of Irving’s Writings (p47)
•Avoid moralizing; write to amuse and entertain
•Rich atmosphere
•Vivid characterization
•American humor
•The musical language (the American Goldsmith)
Rip Van Winkle
•The Story (p48)
•Characterization of Rip Van Winkle (p47)
How to read?
•Three aspects:
•1. a story about a hen-pecked husband.
•2. a story about time, change and identity.
•3. a story about the independence war; a political reading.
3. Analysis
The theme of escapement: in the request of an ideal place to live
The conservative attitude of Irving: change--- and revolution--- upset the natural order of things
•nostalgia for the unrecoverable past
“山中方一日，世上已千年”
•晋朝时，有位名叫王质的樵夫，进到位于今浙江省衢州城东南的石室山伐木，遇见几位仙童对弈、吟曲。

王质在一旁观棋、听曲入迷，仙童递给他一枚状如枣核的仙果，含在嘴里便不觉得饥渴，没过多久，仙童提醒他该回家了，此时，王质见其伐木用的斧柄已烂尽。

当他归家之后，方知同辈之人皆已作古。

南朝任昉《述异记》
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
•The legend of headless horseman A spirit appe ared in the form of a headless figure riding on a horse’s back. It was said that it was the ghost of some nameless soldier whose head had been shot away in battle during the revolutionary war.
•The Story: Ichabod Crane Vs. Brom Bones for the love of Katrina Van Tassel
•Irving’s art of creating archetypes (p49)
•Ichabod Crane: a city slicker
•Brom Bones: a country bumpkin
•The rivalry between them represented the contest between two ethical groups
J. F. Cooper (1789-1851)
Biographical Notes
•A rich land-holding family, being expelled from Yale college
•1806-1807 Five-year sea experience
•Began his literary career by accident
•The Spy(1821), his 2nd novel was a success
•More than 30 novels and a great number of other writings
•Known as the author of the Leatherstocking Tales
II. Cooper’s significance
1. Cooper is the first real national writer who hit upon the native subject of frontier and wilderness and introduced the
“western” tradition into American literature.
2 .Cooper is considered as the first American writer in the writing of three types of novels:
•Historical romance: The Spy
•Sea adventure tales: The Pilot
•Frontier novel: Leatherstocking Tales
3. Cooper wrote about Indians who are among the first Indians to appear in American fiction.
III. The Importance of the Leatherstocking Tales (1)
•Leatherstocking Tales create a myth about a new nation struggling to be born, revealed the progress from old age to rebirth and youth.
•The order of their appearance in print (p53) The order of Natty Bumppo’s life st ages
C. The significance of the order
First as European immigrants, the Americans crept out of the restraints of the traditions in the old world and gradually came in their own. The five Cooper tales constitute a mythic reproduction of the whole process.
IV. Cooper’s Writing Features
•Strong points of his writing:
There is a variety of incidents and tension, complicated plot and structure, and a beautiful description of nature. •Weak points of his writing
Cooper’s style is dreadful. His characterizati on is week and his language, especially his use of dialect, is not authentic. V. Cooper’s idea in literary creation (p54)
•Cooper was troubled by the “poverty of materials” in America. He complained about the absence of lords or castles and the lack of events in America. He held that it was the business of the American writer to discover new sources of fiction. He cast a glance backward in time. Thus, he hit upon the native subject of frontier and wildness.
A. The order of their appearance in print
The Pioneers (1823) 开拓者
The Last of the Mohicans (1826) 最后一个莫希干人
The Prairie(1827) 大草原
The Pathfinder(1840) 探路者
The Deerslayer(1841) 杀鹿将
B. The order of Bumppo’s life stages
The Pioneers ; The Prairie --- the old and dying leatherstiocking
The Last of the Mohicans, and The Pathfinder--- the middle-aged mature man
The Deerslayer--- leatherstiocking in his youth
The Pioneers
The first true romance of the frontier in American literature
The conflicts between nature and civilization, freedom and law
(morally right Vs. Practically inevitable)
Why “pioneers”
◆ Leatherstocking--- a typical frontiersman; representing nature and freedom; morally right
◆ Judge Temple---a typical white settler; representing order, law and civilization;
Practically inevitable
◆It is between them that they built the wilderness into anything like a civilized place. Temple is as much a frontiersman as
Natty Bumppo. Therefore, the plural in the title of the book, The Pioneers
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism a special kind of philosophy appeared in the 1830s in US, quite influential
❖(1) Resources (2) Features (3) Significance
Resources
❖German and French idealism （唯心主义）, originating from Kant (1724—1804) and Thomas Carlyle,
believing that ideas are the most important thing and that which we can know anything of.
❖French eclecticism （折衷主义）, especially that of Cousin （古沾, 1792—1867 ）,
advocating the absorption of various sources and ideas.
❖Oriental mysticism （神秘主义）, represented by Hindu works, those of Confucius and Mencius.
❖American Puritanism, arguing that the knowledge of God and truth can be obtained only through meditation or spiritual insight.
Features
❖A. Emphasis on Spirit (Oversoul) (超灵)
against “world is made of matter”;
against “neglecting of spiritual life in capitalist world”
The most important thing in the universe is spirit, or the Oversoul.
Compare: ● the 18th century Newtonian concept
● mechanization and commercialization of life;
● craze for monetary success and material possession, neglect of spiritual improvement
❖B. Emphasis on individuals
Old Puritan views: self-reliance and self-improvement
Through communication with Oversoul, human being can be divine.
against “total depravity” in Old Puritan doctrines
against dehumanization of capitalist world
❖“The world is nothing, the man is all”;
Compare: ● The Calvinist concept of man
● The dehumanizatio n of man in the process of industrialization
❖C. Taking nature as the symbol of the Spirit (Oversoul)
encouraging people to find goodness and beauty from nature
against materialism in the society and the actions which broke the harmony between human and nature only for profits.
❖“the atmosphere was made…to give man the perpetual presence of the sublime…the remembrance of the city of God”Compare: the 18th century view about nature
Nature was purely made up of matter. It was operating according to natural law.
❖D. Brotherhood of man (equal and liberty)
interested in social reforms; endeavor to create an ideal society; against “everything for money” in the capitalist world.
Significance
❖A. influenced a large group of writers
❖B. summit of American Romanticism
❖C. marked the independence of American literature
D. Transcendentalism dominated the thinking of the American Renaissance, and its resonance reverberated through American life well into the 20th century. In one way or another American most creative minds were drawn into its thrall, attracted not only to its practicable messages of confident self-identity, spiritual progress and social justice, but also by its aesthetics, which celebrated, in landscape and mindscape, the immense grandeur of the American soul.
Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803 - 1882)
❖an American essayist, philosopher, poet, and leader of the transcendentalist movement in the early 19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid 1800s.
Life
❖born in a cler gyman’s family in New England
❖graduated from Harvard
❖a Unitarian minister
❖abandoned Unitarianism and went to Europe searching for truth
❖founded a Transcendentalists' Club and published a journal
❖traveled and gave lectures; quite influential
❖Unitarianism as a theology is the belief in the single personality of God, in contrast to the doctrine of the Trinity (three persons in one God).
❖The Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead.
Major works
❖Nature , the Bible of Transcendentalism
❖“The American Scholar”, regarded as “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”
❖“The Poet”, the job of a poet to be the seer, the sayer and the namer
❖“Self-Reliance”, the importance of cultivating oneself
❖“Each and All”, a poem in celebration of the wholeness. “Each is part of all, and all is in each.”
Emerson’s Transcendentalist Views
❖1) his doctrine of the Oversoul: “Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul…all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name:NATURE”.
Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God
❖“我站在空地上,头沐浴在和煦的空气里,仰望着无垠的太空,小我的一切都消失了,我变成了一只透明的眼球;本身不复存在;我洞察一切;上帝的精气在我周身循环;我成为上帝的一部分。

”
❖2) ideas about the infinitude of man and human perfectibility.
Quotations from Self-Reliance
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
❖3 ) Nature as symbolic of God.
Nature is the vehicle of thought or the symbol of spirit
“The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has remained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.” (Nature)
Aesthetics
❖In Emerson’s opini on, poets should function as preachers who gave directions to the mass.
❖True poetry should serve as a moral purification
❖The argument (or his thought or experience) should decide the form of the poem instead of traditional techniques.
❖The poets should express his thought in symbols.
❖Poets should use words for their pictorial and imaginative meaning.
❖As to theme, Emerson called upon American authors to writer about peculiar American matters.
❖“Our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands draws to a close. The millions that around us are rushing into life cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests…we will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds.”__The American Scholar
Significance
His call for an independent culture represented the desire of the whole nation to develop a culture of its own.
Emerson’s aesthetics brought about a revolution in American literature in general and in American poetry in particular. It marked the birth of true American poetry and true American poets.
Limitation
His reputation fell in the 20th century because he firmly believed human and human society could be better. It seemed that he had no sense of evil and too optimistic about human nature and the society. Somebody once called this kind of optimism "Transcendental folly".
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, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
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
Works (Selected)
❖A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, 1849
❖Resistance to Civil Government / Civil Disobedience / On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1849
❖Walden; or, Life in the Woods, 1854
❖Excursions, 1863
❖The Maine Woods, 1864
❖Slavery in Massachusetts, 1854
❖A Plea for Captain John Brown, 1859
❖Cape Cod, 1865
❖A Yankee in Canada, 1866
❖Complete Works, 1929 (5 vols.)
❖Collected Poems, 1943
Walden
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.
❖.“…I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life…I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…” ___Walden
❖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
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.
❖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.
❖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.
❖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.
❖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。