Picturing Thoreau

Picturing Thoreau PDF Author: Mark W. Sullivan
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739189077
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
As we approach the bicentennial, in 2017, of the birth of Henry David Thoreau, there is considerable debate and confusion as to what he may, or may not have, contributed to American life and culture. Almost every American has heard of Thoreau, but only a few are aware that he was deeply engaged with most of the important issues of his day, from slavery to “Manifest Destiny” and the rights of the individual in a democratic society. Many of these issues are still affecting us today, as we move toward the second quarter of the twenty-first century. By studying how various American artists have chosen to portray Thoreauover the years since the publication of Walden in 1854, we can gain a clear understanding of how he has been interpreted (or misinterpreted) throughout the years since his death in 1862. But along the way, we might also find something useful, for our times, in the insights that Thoreau gained as he wrestled with the most urgent problems being experienced by American society in his day.

Picturing Thoreau

Picturing Thoreau PDF Author: Mark W. Sullivan
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739189077
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
As we approach the bicentennial, in 2017, of the birth of Henry David Thoreau, there is considerable debate and confusion as to what he may, or may not have, contributed to American life and culture. Almost every American has heard of Thoreau, but only a few are aware that he was deeply engaged with most of the important issues of his day, from slavery to “Manifest Destiny” and the rights of the individual in a democratic society. Many of these issues are still affecting us today, as we move toward the second quarter of the twenty-first century. By studying how various American artists have chosen to portray Thoreauover the years since the publication of Walden in 1854, we can gain a clear understanding of how he has been interpreted (or misinterpreted) throughout the years since his death in 1862. But along the way, we might also find something useful, for our times, in the insights that Thoreau gained as he wrestled with the most urgent problems being experienced by American society in his day.

Little Naturalists Henry David Thoreau in the Woods

Little Naturalists Henry David Thoreau in the Woods PDF Author: Kate Coombs
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
ISBN: 1423652584
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Introduces readers to naturalist, philosopher, and writer, Henry David Thoreau and the time he spent on Walden Pond.

Walden's Shore

Walden's Shore PDF Author: Robert M. Thorson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674728408
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
Walden's Shore explores Thoreau's understanding of the "living rock" on which life's complexity depends--not as metaphor but as physical science. Robert Thorson's subject is Thoreau the rock and mineral collector, interpreter of landscapes, and field scientist whose compass and measuring stick were as important to him as his plant press.

Henry Hikes to Fitchburg

Henry Hikes to Fitchburg PDF Author: D.B. Johnson
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547531206
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 37

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Book Description
Inspired by a passage from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, the wonderfully appealing Henry Hikes to Fitchburg follows two friends who have very different approaches to life. When the two agree to meet one evening in Fitchburg, which is thirty miles away, each decides to get there in his own way, and the two have surprisingly different days.

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau PDF Author: Laura Dassow Walls
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022659937X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 670

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Book Description
"Walden. Yesterday I came here to live." That entry from the journal of Henry David Thoreau, and the intellectual journey it began, would by themselves be enough to place Thoreau in the American pantheon. His attempt to "live deliberately" in a small woods at the edge of his hometown of Concord has been a touchstone for individualists and seekers since the publication of Walden in 1854. But there was much more to Thoreau than his brief experiment in living at Walden Pond. A member of the vibrant intellectual circle centered on his neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was also an ardent naturalist, a manual laborer and inventor, a radical political activist, and more. Many books have taken up various aspects of Thoreau's character and achievements, but, as Laura Dassow Walls writes, "Thoreau has never been captured between covers; he was too quixotic, mischievous, many-sided." Two hundred years after his birth, and two generations after the last full-scale biography, Walls renews Henry David Thoreau for us in all his profound, inspiring complexity. Drawing on Thoreau's copious writings, published and unpublished, Walls presents a Thoreau vigorously alive, full of quirks and contradictions: the young man shattered by the sudden death of his brother; the ambitious Harvard College student; the ecstatic visionary who closed Walden with an account of the regenerative power of the Cosmos. We meet the man whose belief in human freedom and the value of labor made him an uncompromising abolitionist; the solitary walker who found society in nature, but also found his own nature in the society of which he was a deeply interwoven part. And, running through it all, Thoreau the passionate naturalist, who, long before the age of environmentalism, saw tragedy for future generations in the human heedlessness around him. "The Thoreau I sought was not in any book, so I wrote this one," says Walls. The result is a Thoreau unlike any seen since he walked the streets of Concord, a Thoreau for our time and all time.--Dust jacket.

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau PDF Author: Laura Dassow Walls
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022634469X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 668

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Book Description
"[The author] traces the full arc of Thoreau’s life, from his early days in the intellectual hothouse of Concord, when the American experiment still felt fresh and precarious, and 'America was a family affair, earned by one generation and about to pass to the next.' By the time he died in 1862, at only forty-four years of age, Thoreau had witnessed the transformation of his world from a community of farmers and artisans into a bustling, interconnected commercial nation. What did that portend for the contemplative individual and abundant, wild nature that Thoreau celebrated? Drawing on Thoreau’s copious writings, published and unpublished, [the author] presents a Thoreau vigorously alive in all his quirks and contradictions: the young man shattered by the sudden death of his brother; the ambitious Harvard College student; the ecstatic visionary who closed Walden with an account of the regenerative power of the Cosmos. We meet the man whose belief in human freedom and the value of labor made him an uncompromising abolitionist; the solitary walker who found society in nature, but also found his own nature in the society of which he was a deeply interwoven part. And, running through it all, Thoreau the passionate naturalist, who, long before the age of environmentalism, saw tragedy for future generations in the human heedlessness around him."--

Learning from Thoreau

Learning from Thoreau PDF Author: Andrew Menard
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820353442
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Learning from Thoreau is an intimate intellectual walk with America’s most edgy and original environmentalist. The thrust of the book consists not in learning “about” Thoreau from an intermediary but, as the title suggests, in learning “from” Thoreau along with the author—whose lifelong engagement with this “genius of the natural world” leads him to examine the process of learning from an admired model. Using both images and text, Andrew Menard offers a personal meditation on Thoreau’s thought, its originality, and its influence on the modern environmental movement. He places Thoreau in dialogue with contemporary artists and thinkers and associates him with a rich variety of places: Walden Pond, the Museum of Modern Art, the Rockefeller State Park Preserve in upstate New York, Mormon Mesa northeast of Las Vegas, and the old town of Königsberg, Prussia. Each place, each experience, each writer, and each work of art provides a different line of approach. The author also leads us through an expanding and deepening series of keywords that trigger fresh occasions to learn from Thoreau: Concord, Walden, walking, seeing, nature, wildness, beauty. The result is a deeply nuanced and informed portrait of Thoreau’s inner and outer landscape.

Thoreau's Animals

Thoreau's Animals PDF Author: Henry David Thoreau
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300223765
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
"From Thoreau's renowned Journal, a treasury of memorable, funny, and sharply observed accounts of the wild and domestic animals of Concord."--Front flap.

Live Deep and Suck all the Marrow of Life: H.D. Thoreau's Literary Legacy

Live Deep and Suck all the Marrow of Life: H.D. Thoreau's Literary Legacy PDF Author: María Laura Arce Álvarez
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1648890075
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
Considered to be one of America’s great intellectuals, Thoreau was deeply engaged in some of the most important social debates of his day including slavery, the emergence of consumerism, the American Dream, living on the frontier, the role of the government and the ecological mind. As testimony to Thoreau’s remarkable intellectual heritage, his autobiography, essays and poetry still continue to inspire and attract readers from across the globe. As a celebration of H.D. Thoreau’s Bicentenary (1817-1862), this edited volume offers a re-reading of his works and reconsiders the influence that his transcendentalist philosophy has had on American culture and literature. Taking an intertextual perspective, the contributors to this volume seek to reveal Thoreau’s influence on American Literature and Arts from the 19th century onwards and his fundamental contribution to the development of 20th century American Literature. In particular, this work presents previously unconsidered intertextual analyses of authors that have been influenced by Thoreau’s writings. This volume also reveals how Thoreau’s influence can be read across literary genres and even seen in visual manifestations such as cinema.

Escape to Walden (Illustrated)

Escape to Walden (Illustrated) PDF Author: Henry D. Thoreau
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description
I have been to Walden Pond. Once, in person, and many times since in my mind, as a retreat from the cares of my world. It was my first and only time in Boston, visiting my Brother. A rainy day, we had a plan to briefly stop at the pond, see the cabin, visit the welcoming center and move on to the next adventure. However, when we got there, I found that I couldn't leave without trekking around the entire pond. Most of the party waited in the van at the shore, anxious I assume, to move on. Yet, I walked and sensed and felt. Thoreau describes the location as "earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." I have seen prettier ponds. I have hiked more scenic trails. Yet, I have never left a place of nature so touched by its serenity, history and meaning. Walden may not be reverential to every visitor on every day, but on that day I was filled and I hope that all can sense some of what Thoreau meant when he said: "Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth." I have created a picture book, or some call it a coffee table book that captures the heart of Walden, in a more readable format. I have combined it with pictures, annotations and other insights into Thoreau's life at Walden Pond. Before you purchase the book, you can see all of the details at www.ContemplateBooks.com. Here are a few excerpts from the book: "Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the cares and coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them." "The majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation." "In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line." "Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness."