聊城大学外国语学院美国文学史与选读课件 Lecture12.pptVIP

Henry David Thoreau 1817- 1862 Henry David Thoreau (1817- 1862) an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, sage writer and philosopher. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. Henry David Thoreau (1817- 1862) Life Works Walden Life Born in a common family in New England Graduated from Harvard, but only stayed at home and helped family business A friend of Emerson Active in social life and had a strong sense of justice (Example: He once refused to pay a poll-tax of 2 dollars because he felt the tax was unfair, and thus he was jailed. And later he wrote an essay named Civil Disobedience which advocated passive resistance to unjust laws and influenced Gandhi in India.(甘地的非暴力不合作运动) not successful as a writer and lived in obscurity all his life Works (Selected) A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, 1849 Resistance to Civil Government / Civil Disobedience / On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1849 Walden; or, Life in the Woods, 1854 Excursions, 1863 The Maine Woods, 1864 Slavery in Massachusetts, 1854 Works (Selected) A Plea for Captain John Brown, 1859 Cape Cod, 1865 A Yankee in Canada, 1866 Complete Works, 1929 (5 vols.) Collected Poems, 1943 Walden Background information Synopsis (contents) Themes Background information about Walden Background information about Walden The book details Thoreaus sojourn in a cabin near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau did not intend to live as a hermit, for he received visitors and returned their visits. Instead, he hoped to isolate himself from society in order to gain a more objective understanding of it. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreaus other goals, and the whole project