walden梭羅.ppt

1、WALDEN,BY,Thoreau,Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 May 6, 1862) was an American author, abolitionist, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian and leading transcendentalist. Thoreaus books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes.,He was a lifelo

2、ng abolitionist. Thoreau is sometimes cited as an individualist anarchist. Though Civil Disobedience seems to call for improving rather than abolishing government.,July 4, 1845 Thoreau began a two-year pilot, he moved to far away from the hometown of Concord, the beautiful Walden secondary forest, t

3、ried a simple seclusion. He left Walden Pond on September 6, 1847. Walden a collection of essays published in 1854, documented the career and two months of his two years at Walden Pond. He erected huts, wasteland farming, writing, reading, living a very simple, primitive life.,Background,Walden is a

4、n American book written by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance. Published in 1854, it details Thoreaus experiences over the course of two years in a

5、cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts,By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Tho

6、reaus other goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, a central theme of the American Romantic Period.,Themes,Walden emphasizes the importance of solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature in transcending the desperate existence that, he argues, is the lot of m

7、ost people. The book is not a traditional autobiography , but combines autobiography with a,social critique of contemporary Western cultures consumerist and materialist attitudes and its distance from and destruction of nature. That the book is not simply a criticism of society, but also an attempt

8、to engage creatively with the better aspects of contemporary culture.,Walden is a difficult book to read for three reasons,First, Thoreau uses surgically precise language, extended, allegorical metaphors, long and complex paragraphs and sentences, and vivid, detailed, and insightful descriptions. Th

9、oreau does not hesitate to use metaphors, allusions, understatement, hyperbole, personification, irony, satire, metonymy, synecdoche, and oxymorons.,Second, its logic is based on a different understanding of life, quite contrary to what most people would call common sense. Ironically, this logic is based on what most people say they believe. Thoreau, recognizing this, fills Walden with sarcasm, paradoxes, and double entendres.,third, quite often any words would be inadequate at expressing many of Thoreau