美国文学 梭罗 NEW 10 Thoreau.pptVIP

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau Essayist Poet Philosopher Henry David Thoreau Life and Career Literary Characteristics Text Study Life and Career Birth: Concord, Massachusetts, July 12, 1817 David Henry Thoreau (Until 20) Education: Harvard (1833-1837) Making pencils; running a private school; meeting with Emerson; delivering speeches; working as a land surveyor Death: 1862 (TB) Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1969 Thoreaus School Performance “He stood close to the top of his class, but he went his own way too much to reach the top.” Literary Characteristics Major Works Style Controversies over Thoreau Influences Major Works A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) Civil Disobedience (1849) Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854) A Plea for Captain John Brown (1859) Excursions (1863) The Maine Woods (1864) Cape Cod (1865) A Yankee in Canada (1866) Civil Disobedience--FS I heartily accept the motto, That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which the will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure. Civil