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1、沈阳理工大学英语辅修专业毕业论文1I. IntroductionA. About the author Henry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau was born in 1817. His father, John, was a pencil maker. Thoreau studied at Harvard University between 1833 and1837. In 1837, he worked as a pencil maker with his father, a handyman, a farmer, yet was at the sa
2、me time an accomplished Greek scholar.Henry David Thoreau was a complex man of many talents who worked hard to shape his craft and his life, seeing little difference between them. One of his first memories was of staying awake at night “looking through the stars to see if I could see God behind them
3、.” One might say he never stopped looking into nature for ultimate Truth.Henry grew up very close to his older brother John, who taught school to help pay for Henrys tuition at Harvard. While there, Henry read a small book by his Concord neighbor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, and in a sense he never
4、 finished exploring its ideas although always definitely on his own terms, just as he explored everything! He and his brother taught school for a while but in 1842, John cut himself while shaving and died of lockjaw in his brothers arms, an untimely death which traumatized the 25-year-old Henry. He
5、worked for several years as a surveyor making pencils with his father, but at the age of 28 in 1845, wanting to write his first book, he went to Walden Pond and built his cabin on land owned by Emerson.While at Walden, Thoreau did an incredible amount of reading and writing, yet he also spent much t
6、ime sauntering in nature. He gave a lecture and was imprisoned briefly for not 沈阳理工大学英语辅修专业毕业论文2paying his poll tax, but mostly he wrote a book as a memorial to a river trip he had taken with his brother, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.After two years, Thoreau returned to Concorda bare t
7、wo miles away which he had visited frequently during his stay at the pond, having completed his experiment in living and his book. Unfortunately, few people were interested in purchasing his book, so he spent the next nine years, surveying and making pencils at times but primarily writing and rewrit
8、ing Walden before trying to publish it. He supported himself by surveying and making a few lectures, often on his experience at Walden Pond. He traveled often, to the Maine woods and to Cape Cod several times, and was particularly interested in the frontier and Indians. He opposed the government for
9、 waging the Mexican war eloquently in Resistance to Civil Government, based on his brief experience in jail, he lectured against slavery in an abolitionist lecture, Slavery in Massachusetts. He even supported John Browns efforts to end slavery after meeting him in Concord, as in A Plea for Captain J
10、ohn Brown.Thoreau died of tuberculosis in 1862, at the age of 44. His last words were said to be “Moose” and “Indian”. Not only did he leave his two books and numerous essays, but he also left a huge Journal published later in 20 volumes, which may have been his major work-in-progress. Many memorial
11、s were penned by his friends, including Emersons eulogy and Louisa May Alcotts poem, “Thoreaus Flute.”Henry David Thoreau was a great American writer of transcendentalism in the 19th century, and now is the first major writer describing nature in American literature history. His understanding of nat
12、ure is unprecedented in American literature. Thoreaus lifelong devotion 沈阳理工大学英语辅修专业毕业论文3to his profession of description of nature in works like Walden makes him a simple of culture for modern Americans, even the whole world. In a sense, Henry David Thoreau stands in a long tradition of forming sel
13、ves and voices in his writing. Often known as an American poet, essayist and philosopher, Thoreau lives out the tenets of Transcendentalism and recounts the experience in his Walden. He is one of the few American authors that have been admired or critiqued globally. In 1995, Walter Harding turned ou
14、t an article titled Thoreaus Reputation trying to render a panoramic view of how Thoreau had been perceived in a world other than the United States.B. About the work WaldenWhen Walden was published in 1854, it was not well accepted by people. Instead it was regarded as “wicked and heathenish”. It wa
15、s published only the time until Thoreau died of disease. But many years later especially in twentieth century, it was gradually known and appreciated by lots of readers all over the world.Walden emphasizes the importance of self-reliance, solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature. The book is
16、 neither a novel nor a true autobiography, but combines these genres with a social critique and materialist attitudes. The book is not simply a criticism of society, but also an attempt to engage creatively with the better aspects of contemporary culture is suggested both by his proximity to Concord society and by his admiration for classical literature. There are signs of ambiguity, or an attempt to see an alternative side of something commonthe sound of a passing locom
