Classics and the Western Canon discussion

EDIT: Of course, Genni and Thomas are correct. Your very confused elderly moderator had a major brain freeze, posting Civil Disobedience a week early.

Hmmm. Was that an act of Civil Disobedience against the schedule set up by the group governance? But if I AM the governance, can I civilly disobey myself?

Oh well. This week is the second half of Walden, of course.

My very bad.

I'm totally confused. I thought we were finishing Walden this week?

Genni wrote: "I'm totally confused. I thought we were finishing Walden this week?"

Me too! Walden pond has just frozen over and Henry is gazing at bubbles under the new ice. I haven't found out yet if he falls in... it's a cliffhanger! I hope Everyman will give me another week to find out what happens next.

I've been looking for the philosophy in Walden, but if it's there at all it seems to be as an undercurrent. It's persistent, but always beneath the surface. I can see this as "transcendentalist" literature, based on what we read of Emerson, but Thoreau is rarely explicit about it. He certainly doesn't like to lecture about it, at least not in abstract "philosophical" terms. The section on "Higher Laws" seems to come closest to what we saw in Emerson, but even here it is draped in analogy:

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails. In the music of the harp which trembles round the world it is the insisting on this which thrills us. The harp is the travelling patterer for the Universe's Insurance Company, recommending its laws, and our little goodness is all the assessment that we pay. Though the youth at last grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent, but are forever on the side of the most sensitive. Listen to every zephyr for some reproof, for it is surely there, and he is unfortunate who does not hear it. We cannot touch a string or move a stop but the charming moral transfixes us. Many an irksome noise, go a long way off, is heard as music, a proud, sweet satire on the meanness of our lives.

Thomas wrote: "I've been looking for the philosophy in Walden, but if it's there at all it seems to be as an undercurrent. It's persistent, but always beneath the surface. I can see this as "transcendentalist" li..."

So far, and I haven't finished this weeks' reading yet so this is preliminary, the only real philosophy I have found that links Thoreau to Emerson is the centrality of nature to both of them.

If Thoreau thought of himself as having a special calling to live the simplest possible life and philosophize, I would welcome his message as wholesome encouragement to really think about why we do the things we do and obtain the things we own. But he seems to hold the rest of society in contempt for not having the same desires he has. That makes me think of him more as a social parasite, sitting on his rustic doorstep, shaped with a borrowed axe on borrowed land, listening to the birds all day. Without people with more entrepreneurial spirit than he, there would be no axe for him to borrow, nor anyone to search out, translate, and publish the Hindu scriptures he loves to read.

Well, I finished Walden, and while I also didn't find much philosophy, I did find inspiration to purchase a 3 day stay at a cabin in the woods in January. I'm excited about that. I don't think I'm going to take Thoreau or Emerson with me though...

I have really been wondering about what it is that makes a "transcendentalist". Thomas asked in the other thread if Thoreau identified himself with transcendentalism or if it was just accredited to him. I found this little snippet during the story of the fire. This line is kind of hilarious, but anyway, it is the closest thing I found to him identifying as anything.

"Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence of our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard the crackling and actually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, and realized, alas! that we were there."

What's the difference between a transcendentalist and someone who simply loves nature? The more I read, the more I think about what Emerson said at the beginning of his essay "The Transcendentalist", that transcendentalism is more of manifestation of idealism in the specific context of New England in the early 1800's. (I hope I remembered him correctly here.)

Thoreau talks pretty extensively about some of his visitors, but the only press time Emerson gets is, "There was one other * with whom I had “solid seasons,” long to be remembered, at his house in the village, and who looked in upon me from time to time; but I had no more for society there.".

Another thing I noticed is that when he uses Scripture, he nevers references it. So he would write something like "Walden was dead and is alive again" without note. But everytime he would quote Hindu Scriptures, he would make a note of it (The great Brahmin says...). Is assumption of scripture knowledge the cause?

I got a great kick out of the following description of the squirrel:

"One would approach at first warily through the shrub- oaks, running over the snow crust by fits and starts like a leaf blown by the wind, now a few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy, making inconceivable haste with his “trotters,” as if it were for a wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting on more than half a rod at a time; and then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous expression and a gratuitous somerset, * as if all the eyes in the universe were fixed on him..."

My youngest son loves squirrels and there have been many times we have watched them behave in just this manner. So funny. :-)

Genni wrote: "Another thing I noticed is that when he uses Scripture, he nevers references it. So he would write something like "Walden was dead and is alive again" without note. But everytime he would quote Hindu Scriptures, he would make a note of it (The great Brahmin says...). Is assumption of scripture knowledge the cause?"

I think so. After reading your comment I ran across the passage about the ice cutters on the pond, where Thoreau says they remind him of the "fable of the lark and the reapers, or the parable of the sower." He doesn't reference Aesop or the Gospels, presumably because most of his readers would be familiar with these. But in the next paragraph he writes about "bathing his intellect" in the "cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta" and goes on about Vishnu and Brahma, etc.

Emerson and Thoreau were among the first serious readers of Vedic literature in America; Emerson received his copy of the Bhagavad Gita from Thomas Carlyle, and Thoreau similarly received his library of Hindu scripture from an English friend. I would imagine that a lot of Americans readers were hearing about these works for the first time via the Transcendentalists. I would guess it also added to their perceived eccentricity.

My favorite line so far: "Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection."

And an Emerson sighting (or so it seems to me) in "The Pond in Winter":

If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful.

He goes on to compare the geophysical traits of Walden Pond to the character of a man: "Perhaps we need only to know how his shores trend and his adjacent country or circumstances, to infer his depth and concealed bottom." An interesting analogy, but I'm not sure if it holds up. It seems to me that Thoreau is sometimes a little too quick to judge. People are not so easy to measure.

If I had to give a one line review of this eloquent but rhetorical work, I would choose this surprising but unintentional self-critical quote from the work itself:

What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study.

Thoreau, Henry David (2012-05-16). Walden (p. 57).

I appreciate his warning to not let your stuff own you, but he goes to far to suggest not owning or desiring to own anything. His dream of escaping "the rat race", is admirable and understandable but his solution of a nearly complete rejection and withdrawal from "modern" living is both unreasonable and impractical.

I can share in his lamentation in some of the less useful excesses of media, material goods, and custom, but he fails to acknowledge the benefits whenever possible, and accept both without resignation that this is how the world works. He does not seem to share Emerson's more reasonable praise of the "useful arts" working upon the commodities of nature to aid man to do work, and I would also add, to do good.

I must admit that I may no longer fit either extreme of Thoreau's stated target audiences which may have resulted in my weaker connection with the work:

I do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not;—but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them. There are some who complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they say, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.

Thoreau, Henry David (2012-05-16). Walden (p. 10 - Economy). . Kindle Edition.

If I was discontent and had nothing to lose, or had everything to lose, the work might have resonated with me more. It was thought provoking and it caused some self-reflection in its extremities, I may even try and simplify a few things. In the final analysis though, there must be more moderate and reasonable solutions to fit in to the world than by withdrawing from it.

Genni wrote: "Well, I finished Walden, and while I also didn't find much philosophy, I did find inspiration to purchase a 3 day stay at a cabin in the woods in January. I'm excited about that. ..."

I'm so glad you're going to the woods! I read Walden over the summer and it inspired me to spend a lot more time in the garden. Sometimes, "we need the tonic of wildness."

My favorite thing about Thoreau is the emphasis he places on self-reliance. He seems to have made this journey, not to totally escape society, but to explore his own strength. He learns his limits, capabilities, and necessities. Yet I don't think he gets completely caught up in the poetics of it all. He longs to lay on the ice and find the solid bottom of Walden pond. My favorite:

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them...There is a solid bottom everywhere."

Journals were important for members of the transcendental circle. They often shared their journals. I wonder what effect this had on their writing- to know friends are a potential audience. Thoreau stayed two years at Walden, but several years (7?) passed between his stay and the publication of the piece. In his own words: "Perhaps this is the main value of a habit of writing- of keeping a journal. That so we remember our best hours- & stimulate ourselves... If you foresee that a part of your essay will topple down after the lapse of time, throw it down now." Thoreau the naturalist took copious notes and his journals are full of rambling, but over the course of seven years Thoreau was able to distill his writing into something potent.

Emerson seems to have had a similar method. He journaled, keeping what he felt was valuable. Emerson even took an index of the topics in his writing so he could refer back to specific places in his journal.

This method reminds me of a line from The Sunscreen Song:
"Be careful whose advice you buy but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it's worth."

Do you see evidence of Thoreau "painting over the ugly parts" in his writing? I find the idea of journal revision fascinating. Could there actually be something wonderful beneath pages of drivel?

From the section on Higher Laws:
"Nature is hard to overcome, but she must be overcome."

Can anyone shed some light on this for me? I thought we were happily uniting with nature, now we must overcome her?

Ashley wrote: "From the section on Higher Laws:
"Nature is hard to overcome, but she must be overcome."

Can anyone shed some light on this for me? I thought we were happily uniting with nature, now we must overc..."

Great question. I have no answer to suggest right now, but I hope others do.

Ashley wrote: "From the section on Higher Laws:
"Nature is hard to overcome, but she must be overcome."

Can anyone shed some light on this for me? I thought we were happily uniting with nature, now we must overc..."

This section reads to me like Plato. In the quote, he is referring to our baser instincts (sensuality, intemperance, sloth) which are certainly natural, but they are lower instincts to be overcome in favor of "higher" ideals.

"We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers."

I think this is where some of the contempt which Thoreau feels for his fellow man originates. He thinks someone who lives for material gain has been defeated by his or her baser instincts.

Ashley wrote: "From the section on Higher Laws:
"Nature is hard to overcome, but she must be overcome."

Can anyone shed some light on this for me? I thought we were happily uniting with nature, now we must overc..."

I think in this instance nature he means to overcome is "human nature" or the tendency to be sinful, lazy, and unclean.

Ashley wrote: "I'm so glad you're going to the woods! I read Walden over the summer and it inspired me to spend a lot more time in the garden. Sometimes, "we need the tonic of wildness."
"

Thanks, Ashley. I can't wait!

I am finally finished with Thoreau's sojourn at Walden and thoroughly enjoyed this return after 42 years. I admit I am a tree-hugger!! So although I admire his desire for living the simple life, it is very difficult to accomplish in our society, isn't it?
He seems to waffle about how others live, sometimes he sneers & at others seems to understand the choices.

Genni, why wouldn't you want to take Thoreau with you to the cabin? I think Walden is a perfect companion when one is "communing with nature." Or of you want to laugh it up...there is always A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail!!

Chris wrote: "..Genni, why wouldn't you want to take Thoreau with you to the cabin? I think Walden is a perfect companion when one is "communing with nature." Or of you want to laugh it up...there is always A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail!! "

I don't think I want to take him simply because I JUST finished reading it. And I am way too curious about too many other books to reread that one again so quickly. :-) I am contemplating Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance to round out my transcendental experience. Maybe he will go with me instead...

PS-I have read, and did enjoy A Walk In The Woods, but I have to say, it i not my favorite Bryson!

Genni: Another fiction book is Geraldine Brooks' March. It is about Mr. March from Little Women, who of course was based on Alcott's father. It incorporates his interaction with Trancendalists. Won the Pulitzer Prize.

Thanks, Chris! I will check it out as another possibility. :-)