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Metaphysical themes and images in the early prose and poetry of Henry David ThoreauHannah, Bruce Frank, 1919- January 1941 (has links)
No description available.
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Henry David Thoreau : mysticKeller, Michael R. January 1976 (has links)
This dissertation seeks to construct a profile of Thoreau as a mystic. It examines Thoreau's life up to the publication of Walden, using in the main Thoreau's Journal and letters. It elucidates Thoreau's mystical experience and temperament chiefly by paralleling them with the experience and temperament of other mystics. It comments extensively on Walden throughout its chapters in an attempt to clarify Walden's mystical dimension.The Introduction justifies the method of paralleling Thoreau's experience with that of other mystics. It also defines the terms "mystic" and "mystical experience" and briefly argues the appropriateness of regarding Thoreau as a mystic. The Introduction gives special attention to explaining the various aspects of "illumination," the particular mystical state that Thoreau experienced numerous times in his life.Chapter 1 summarizes and comments in detail on many of Thoreau's illuminative experiences. Thoreau could facilitate these experiences either through meditative practice or through the cultivation of a passive, open, receptive condition while on walks in nature. Thoreau's illuminations included experiences of mystical "Silence," incommunicable noetic experiences, experiences of infinity and of flotation in infinity, experiences of calm and infinite self, "illuminative light," transfiguration and sacramentalization of external nature, joyfully reborn self, and other experiences.Chapter 2 shows that Thoreau conceived of his life as a quest for more and more complete mystical experience. Deliberate pursuit of illumination through nature formed one of the means through which he could make progress on this quest. Thoreau sought out certain natural locales, for example, that might catalyze illumination. Efforts of moral self-examination and self-shaping, efforts of character change, formed another means of progress. Thoreau sought to eliminate negative elements from his character and to cultivate non-self-preoccupation, trust, love, imperturbability, joy.Chapter 3 explores the effects on Thoreau of the gradual lessening, starting perhaps in 1841, of the frequency and intensity of his illuminations. The chapter shows that Thoreau shared in a period common in mystical lives called the Dark Night of the Soul, a period of despondency and spiritual deprivation that springs from the phenomenon of declining illuminations. Thoreau's purpose in going to Walden was partly to dispel the Dark Night he was experiencing and to recover the full illuminative state that he enjoyed previously. Thoreau's Dark Night continued past the Walden sojourn, however. Thoreau's Dark Night was rather frequently brightened by illuminations, although Thoreau commonly expressed dissatisfaction with them. The chapter explores why Thoreau came to regard these later illuminations as insufficient. By the time Thoreau published Walden, he had not advanced to Union, the final stage of the mystical life. The chapter suggests that remaining self-preoccupation and an acquisitive approach to the joys of illumination may have been the reason for Thoreau's not passing completely out of both the Illuminative and Dark Night phases of the mystical life and proceeding to Union. Thoreau seemed to be aware of the hindering effects of his remaining self-involvement, however, so he was in a likely way to grow out of this self-involvement.Chapter 4 discusses the possible effects on Thoreau's character of his numerous illuminative experiences. The chapter finds some of these effects to be a deep feeling of self-worth and of personal security, a sense of belonging in the world by rights as an integral part of it, asense of a loving presence that infuses life, self-detachment, inward calm, loving feeling and behavior, joy and zest in living, liberation from material pursuits, experience of the external world as sacramental or paradisal, and the ability spontaneously to poeticize or mythologize daily experience.
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Thoreau's theory of literary criticism as reflected in the journalsWiley, Patricia Whitcomb, 1923- January 1950 (has links)
No description available.
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Thoreau as a nature essayistLoyd, Ralph Adelbert. January 1955 (has links)
Call number: LD2668 .T4 1955 L69 / Master of Science
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The depth of Walden: Thoreau's symbolism of the divine in natureDrake, William January 1967 (has links)
No description available.
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Etymological practices in Thoreau's WeekWoolwine, William Thomas, 1935- January 1963 (has links)
No description available.
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Henry David Thoreau: a Study of CharacterParsons, Sabra 08 1900 (has links)
This thesis looks at the characteristics of Henry David Thoreau through his writings rather than through what other critics have written.
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Thoreau's Use of Imagery in "Walden"Sullivan, Jennifer Sims 12 1900 (has links)
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.
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An autumn journey : time, place, and pattern in Henry David Thoreau's later workDotterman, Anthony Matthew 25 July 2001 (has links)
This thesis situates a discussion of Thoreau's later natural history essays in the
context of the author's other writings. Beginning with an examination of the
writings of Thoreau's friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, this paper
examines Thoreau's relation to and departure from Emerson's understanding of
time, place, and pattern in nature. Through a close reading of Thoreau's journal
entries and natural history essays, this thesis follows Thoreau's development as a
naturalist and examines the relationship between his natural history writings and
the American transcendentalist movement. / Graduation date: 2002
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"Living Outside the Madness" : reform and ecology in the work of Henry Thoreau and Gary SnyderHiatt, Bryan 20 February 1997 (has links)
Recent conflicts in America concerning the environment (the harvesting of old growth
timber in the Pacific Northwest, or the proposed opening of public lands in southern Utah to mining
interests, for instance) have precipitated a personal examination of "historical others" (Jensen 64),
individuals that possess very different sensibilities from a larger capitalist culture. Two such
writers, Henry Thoreau and Gary Snyder, use the wilderness to enact alternative patterns of living
that are designed to change cultures that have lost touch with the land, and have spiraled into a
future where nature is a mere afterthought.
In response to the growth of his society, Thoreau built a cabin at Walden pond as an
experiment to determine if life could be lived simply and morally. His activities were an effort to
"wake up" his "neighbors" who were just beginning to explore capitalism. "Moral reform," Thoreau
believed, "is the effort to throw off sleep" (WAL 61). Thoreau's criticism of capitalism, agricultural
reform, and slavery were generated to help his culture understand what it is to live morally, and
"awake."
Gary Snyder is the voice of Thoreau in the late 20th century, and his work addresses a
world fully enveloped in capitalism. The exploitation of wild creatures and places by world
governments and multi-national corporations is the problem of the modern age for Snyder, and
place-based living is a way of dissenting from a consumption-oriented culture. Reform begins with
the individual living close to the land, but also involves people living in communities and creating
patterns of living that are ecologically stable.
This paper is, in an immediate sense, a comparison of two "American" non-conformists,
but it is also a response to cultural and environmental crises that both writers faced. Chapter I of
this study introduces Thoreau and Snyder and establishes the parameters of this paper. Chapter
II discusses Thoreau's views on capitalism, agricultural reform, and environmental degradation.
Chapter III highlights Snyder's interest in place-based living and bioregionalism. Chapter VI brings
Thoreau and Snyder together in a discussion of political and social reform. The final chapter of
this study reflects how Thoreau and Snyder mesh as ecological philosophers. / Graduation date: 1997
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