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I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the eential 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
Henry David Thoreau 1, Introduction
David Henry Thoreau was born in Concord, Maachusetts, into the “modest New England family”(a pencil maker)on the 12th of July, 1817.He was graduated at Harvard College in 1837, but without any literary distinction.After leaving the University, he joined his brother in teaching a private school, which he soon renounced.His father was a manufacturer of lead-pencils, and Henry applied himself for most of his adult life.On July 4, 1845, when he moved to a small, self-built house on land owned by Emerson in a second-growth forest around the shores of Walden Pond where Thoreau can concentrate and get himself working more on his writing.In 1854, he would publish as Walden, or Life in the Woods, recounting the two years, two months, and two days he had spent at Walden Pond.Henry David Thoreau is one of the most influential figures in American thought and literature both for the modern clarity of his prose style and the prescience of his views on nature and politics.He is also the American’s greatest prose stylist, naturalist, pioneer ecologist, conservationist, visionary, and humanist.He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his eay Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.He died on May 6, 1862.2, Masterpiece
Walden at first won few admirers, but later critics have regarded it as a claic American work that explores natural simplicity, harmony, and beauty as models for just social and cultural conditions.American poet Robert Frost wrote of Thoreau, ”In one book...he surpaes everything we have had in America.“ John Updike wrote in 2004,“A century and a half after its publication, Walden has become such a totem of the back-to-nature, preservationist, anti-busine, civil-disobedience mindset, and Thoreau
so vivid a protester, so perfect a crank and hermit saint, that the book risks being as
revered and unread as the Bible.2.1 background information
The book details Thoreau's journal in a cabin near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Maachusetts.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 wilderne but at the edge of town, not far from his family home.2.2 General introduction
Walden published in 1854 after a nine-year proce of composition and revision, recounting the two years and two months Thoreau spent at Walden Pond from 1845 to 1847
which comprees 26 months into a single year, with the paage of four seasons to symbolize human development
Content
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 neceities 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.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 eential 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 claical 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 a habit, 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, 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 ma of humanity
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.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 exprees affection for wood and fire.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 witnees 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 paionate and urgent than its predeceors.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 happine and self-fulfillment.3, Analysis
3,1Theme
Walden emphasizes the importance of self-reliance, solitude, contemplation, and closene to nature in transcending the ”desperate“ existence that, he argues, is the lot of most humans.3.2, Style
His literary style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and ”Yankee" love of practical detail.[2] He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay;at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true eential needs.
