Man and himselfMan and societyMan and nature

最后一片净土 ?

西藏与现代文明的关系

Henry David Thoreau, 1854

H.D. Thoreau (1817-1862)

• Essayist• Poet• Practical philosopher best known for having lived the doctrines of Transcendentalism, recording his experience in Walden.

• Famous around the world as a thinker and environmentalist

Little known at his death (aged 44); came to be known in the 20th century

Graduated from Harvard Loved writing, and observing nature Became close friend to Emerson, began to keep

a journal Made a canoe trip along the Concord and

Merrimack rivers in 1839 with brother John Dwelled beside the Walden Pond for 2 years An individualist who lived according to his

beliefs A dedicated abolitionist

Walden (1854) - 18 essays describing his experiment in

basic living A Week on the Concord and Merrimack

Rivers (1849) “Civil Disobedience” (1849)

July 4, 1845 – Sept. 6, 1847 At Walden Pond in a cabin he built himself,

with plastered walls and a shingled roof. His equipment – an ax, two knives and a

fork, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a jug for molasses, and one lamp.

He made his own furniture – a bed, table, desk, and three chairs.

Raising beans and vegetables, fishing, swimming, rowing

Mostly devoted to observing the seasons, animals, plants, and to writing.

Supplying his needs by his own labor and developing and testing his transcendental philosophy of individualism, self-reliance, and material economy（节俭） for the sake of spiritual wealth.

Seeking to reduce his physical needs to a minimum, in order to free himself for study, thought, and observation of nature and himself.

At 29 (1846) during his experiment at Walden Pond, he spent a night in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax（人头税） that supported the Mexican-American War and the continuation of slavery (returned fugitive slaves to the South)

An example of his philosophy of “passive resistance,” a means of nonviolent protest

- “Civil Disobedience”(1849) (originally named “Resistance to Civil Government”)

- influence on Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr.

“That government is best which governs not at all.”

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”

Individualism or anarchy?

1. “Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly.” (p.51)

2. “But I retained the landscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow.” (p.52) 至于那地方的风景，我却也保留住了，后来我每年都得到丰收，却不需要独轮车来载走。

3. “As long as possible live free and uncommitted”你们要尽可能长久地生活得自由，生活得并不执著才好。

4. “I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable part of a farm, … and left the farmer only the skimmed milk.”

我时常看到一个诗人，在欣赏了一片田园风景中的最珍贵部分之后，就扬长而去，那些固执的农夫还以为他拿走的仅只是几枚野苹果。诗人却把他的田园押上了韵脚，而且多少年之后，农夫还不知道这回事，这么一道最可羡慕的、肉眼不能见的篱笆已经把它圈了起来，还挤出了它的牛乳，去掉了奶油，把所有的奶油都拿走了，他只把去掉了奶油的奶水留给了农夫。

1. To live close to nature2. To stay away from people3. The joy of living in nature can nourish

one’s spirit even long after it.4. Keep independent thinking and spiritual

freedom5. Man is caged / enslaved by his desire

and greed for material satisfaction.

… I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:   For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

Read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown” closely.

Think about the discussion questions after the text, esp.

1. What is the significance of the setting? 2. What dramatic change happens to

Goodman Brown? Why the change? 3. What is the theme of the story? 4. What are some of the major symbols?