Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1991. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [251]-262).

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It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate the nature of Thoreau's use of organic imagery by tracing recurrent symbols that represent key concepts and provide unity and coherence throughout Walden. By charting the patterns of imagery in Walden, one can observe Thoreau's movement from an initially pessimistic view of man's present state to one of transcendental optimism and hope for freedom in the future.

<p>This dissertation examines whether democratic citizens are responsible for the behavior of their governments. Through careful analysis of the political theory and practice of Henry David Thoreau and Jane Addams, I demonstrate that notions of democracy that are distinctly modern in their emphasis upon plurality and individuality can instill in citizens a sense of responsibility for public life. My analysis also calls attention to several challenges that make ethical democratic citizenship a demanding undertaking. In the final chapters, I construct an account of responsible democratic citizenship that addresses these challenges, drawing upon lessons learned from my discussion of Thoreau and Addams, as well as from more contemporary thinkers. Democratic citizens, I argue, do not fully control the circumstances in which they act, and thus they often become implicated in outcomes to which they have not explicitly consented. If they aspire to be self-ruling, however, they must accept some responsibility for political outcomes that affect their own wellbeing and are affected by their behavior. Furthermore, I argue that citizens are unlikely to recognize and discharge their shared responsibilities unless they cultivate particular attitudes, including curiosity, flexibility, sympathy, humility and courage. These attitudes enable citizens to learn about the problems for which they are responsible and cooperate with others to solve shared problems.</p> / Dissertation

Dissertation: Hamburg University, 2008 / Includes bibliographical references.

Dissertation: Hamburg University, 2008 / Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation examines how Concord, Massachusetts became a heritage town in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Concord-based authors (including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott) at once contributed to Concord’s attractiveness as a location and took advantage of the growing reputation and popularity of the town as a tourist site. Their writings, rooted in Concord, drew attention to the town and to themselves as authors within it, while also elevating the stature of American literature. Linking literature and site-building, Concordians encouraged contemporaneous sightseeing in a curated landscape. This sets the origins of tourism and site-building in Concord earlier than standard academic narratives of Progressive Era preservation in New England. The primary contribution of this interdisciplinary study is to trace the ways in which collective memory was fashioned for an audience of literary “arm-chair travellers” and then employed to endow private houses with literary and historical importance to national heritage, as public locations to be visited and preserved in Concord’s landscape. This work traces the development of spiritualized “places” in Concord from Revolutionary War monument-building to Emerson’s literary community investing the landscape with poetic associations, Hawthorne’s engagement of tourism as an appeal to readers, and George William Curtis’s efforts to market Concord as a national literary retreat. It further examines Thoreau’s literary career in relation to his interest in local history, tourism, and museum-building in his hometown. Finally, the popularity of Alcott’s Little Women boosted tourism in Concord, and the increase of visitors coincided with projects to memorialize Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Transcendentalist movement in the landscape. These efforts culminated in the development of guide books and organized tours for visitors, and the emergence of a local souvenir industry. The study concludes with the institutionalization of historic house museums in the early twentieth century.

The recent "greening" of Willa Cather Scholarship has initiated new conversations about Cather's use of and dependence on landscape in her fiction. Scholars have frequently noted Cather's reliance on landscape imagery, but this thesis suggests parallels between Cather's and Henry David Thoreau's use of awakening imagery and examines how such parallels work in Cather's environmental discussion of wilderness and environmental communities. There is little direct evidence linking the development of Cather to Thoreau, although their similar use of awakening imagery suggests they comment on similar environmental discussions through their writing, indicating that Cather deserves further attention as a nature writer. Because Thoreau is often identified as the father of modern nature writing, recognizing similarities between Cather and Thoreau further solidifies Cather's place within the canon of American nature writing. This thesis examines how Cather's awakening imagery in The Song of the Lark is similar to Thoreau's ideas of awakening in Walden. The comparison elucidates Cather's dependence on landscape that evolves into a deeper ecological discussion in My Ántonia where Cather's characters wrestle with finding a balance between modern industry and land preservation, an issue Thoreau also battled in his time. Preservation becomes an important element in Cather's fiction and is explored in this thesis through concepts of wilderness. Finally, I will address how Death Comes for the Archbishop uses awakening imagery and concepts of wilderness to promote the creation of balanced environmental communities. Cather's ability to employ elements of nature writing in Archbishop makes it her strongest holistic showing as a nature writer. Reading Cather as a nature writer who recognized similar environmental issues as Thoreau forces critics to broaden the canon of American nature writing. Such a reading also expands previous ideas of the form and style of traditional nature writing. Recognizing Cather's dependence on landscape gives nature a voice among other social issues Cather addresses in her writing, namely gender, race, and social status. Identifying Cather as an American nature writer issues a greater call to critics and scholars to re-evaluate other texts within and without of the canon for their ecological significance. Focusing on consistent ecological issues and patterns in American literature will broaden our understanding of the nation's evolving ecological imagination.