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Hassler, David. "Thoreau as Western yogi." Instructions for remote access. Click here to access this electronic resource. Access available to Kutztown University faculty, staff, and students only, 1999. http://www.kutztown.edu/library/services/remote_access.asp.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1999.Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2832. Typescript. Abstract appears on leaf [ii]. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-58).
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Medeiros, Eduardo Vicentini de. "Thoreau : moralidade em primeira pessoa." reponame:Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFRGS, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10183/131570.
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A presente tese carrega o ônus de afirmar a relevância dos textos de Henry David Thoreau para a filosofia moral. Duas estratégias paralelas foram utilizadas para cumprir a tarefa. A primeira consiste na discussão pormenorizada de um conjunto de autores que apresentaram para Thoreau diferentes visões sobre a moralidade e o papel da filosofia na tecitura de uma vida digna de ser vivida: o Unitarismo de William Ellery Channing, as doutrinas do Scottish Common Sense de Dugald Stewart e Thomas Reid, o utilitarismo teológico de William Paley, o intuicionismo racional dos Platonistas de Cambridge (representados aqui por Ralph Cudworth), Orestes Brownson e Ralph Waldo Emerson – dois dos principais nomes do Transcendentalismo da Nova Inglaterra e Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Victor Cousin e Thomas Carlyle – primeiros intérpretes do Idealismo Alemão para o mundo de língua inglesa. A segunda estratégia articula a reação de Thoreau a essas diferentes posições sobre a moralidade, mostrando como, a partir dessa reação, ele foi capaz de formular um exercício de pensamento moral, cristalizado, emblematicamente, na escritura de Walden. O conceito de “identidade ficcional” foi pensado para capturar as diferentes técnicas utilizadas nesse exercício.The present thesis carries the burden of asserting the relevance of Henry David Thoreau´s texts for moral philosophy. Two parallel strategies have been used to complete the task. The first is a thorough discussion of a group of authors who presented to Thoreau different views on morality and the role of philosophy in the weaving of a life worthy of being lived: William Ellery Channing´s Unitarianism, the doctrines of the Scottish Common Sense - Dugald Stewart and Thomas Reid, William Paley´s theological utilitarianism, rational intuitionism of Cambridge Platonists (represented here by Ralph Cudworth), Orestes Brownson and Ralph Waldo Emerson - two of the leading names of New England Transcendentalism and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Victor Cousin and Thomas Carlyle - first interpreters of German Idealism to the English-speaking world. The second strategy articulates Thoreau´s reaction to these different positions on morality, showing how, from this reaction, he was able to formulate an exercise in moral thinking, crystallized, emblematically, in the writing of Walden. The concept of "fictional identity" was designed to capture different techniques used in this exercise.
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Latour, David. "L'éthique écologique chez Henri David Thoreau." Thesis, Aix-Marseille, 2014. http://www.theses.fr/2014AIXM3077.
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L’écriture de la nature de Thoreau plonge ses racines dans la Nouvelle-Angleterre du XIXe. Nourri de ses valeurs, l’auteur montre comment la vie doit être économisée et non dépensée en vain dans des activités frivoles. Pour se faire, il choisit la voie de la simplicité et de la solitude dans la nature ce qui lui permet de remettre en cause ce que la société considère d’ordinaire comme des vertus. Vivre seul dans la nature sauvage est un moyen anthropocentrique pour accéder au bonheur car la nature apporte à l’homme tout ce dont il a besoin. Ainsi, Thoreau est un naturaliste qui vit dans la nature et la parcourt. Son naturalisme s’éloigne de plus en plus des théories emersoniennes sur l’immanence. Le véritable scientifique sait regarder les animaux en engageant sa subjectivité et peut aller jusqu’à voir dans certains animaux l’incarnation de vertus.Pour nuancer cet anthropocentrisme, Thoreau appelle au zoocentrisme. Celui-ci peut même amener à une cohabitation pacifique entre les espèces. Toutefois, l’écriture et la pratique de Thoreau sont nourries de paradoxes en ce qui concerne la chasse, la pêche et le végétarisme. Pour vivre en harmonie avec la nature, Thoreau se rapproche du modèle indien qui a ses limites. Parmi quelques suggestions, Thoreau est le premier à proposer la création de parcs nationauxThoreau’s nature writing is rooted in 19th century New-England. Fed on New-England’s values, the author shows life should be spared and not spent in vain in mundane activities. In order for him to do so, he chooses the way of a life of simplicity and solitude in nature, which enables him to question what society traditionally sees as virtues.Living alone in the wild is an anthropocentric means to reach happiness because nature provides man with all that he needs. Hence, Thoreau is a naturalist who lives in nature and walks in ii. His naturalism becomes more and more estranged from Emerson’s theory on immanence. The real scientist can watch animals using his subjectivity and can go so far as to see in certain animals the incarnation of some virtues.To nuance this anthropomorphist approach, Thoreau advocates zoocentrism. This point of view can even lead to a peaceful cohabitation between species. However, Thoreau’s writing and actions are fed with paradoxes as far as hunting, fishing and being a vegetarian is concerned. To live in harmony with nature, Thoreau gests closer to the Indian model which has limits. Thoreau makes many suggestions, among which the creation of national parks
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Furstenau, Nina. "Thoreau and eastern spiritual texts the influence of sacred sound in the writings of Henry David Thoreau /." Diss., Columbia, Mo. : University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10355/4964.
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Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007.The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on October 25, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.
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Fusfield, William David. "Walden's "Conclusion" : Henry David Thoreau's transcendental synthesis of the classical peroration and early-romantic "Combinational Writing" /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/8223.
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Thiercy, Hélène. "La pensée politique de Henry David Thoreau." Paris 7, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013PA070074.
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Notre étude, en se penchant sur l'ensemble de l'oeuvre publiée de Henry David Thoreau, ainsi que des manuscrits non édités, s'attache à identifier les fondements de la pensée politique d'un auteur controversé dont la popularité a simplifié le message. Elle met à jour un écrivain soucieux d'avoir une influence sur son public dans des écrits ciselés, dynamiques et non-conformistes. La pensée politique de Thoreau se révèle non seulement cohérente, ce que nombre de détracteurs ont mis en doute, mais elle pose de manière innovante, cent-cinquante ans après sa mort, les défis auxquels font face nos démocraties : il encourage un renouveau du droit et de l'action citoyenne, notamment par une remise en cause de la rigidité de nos systèmes étatiques et par l'appel à des principes qui commencent seulement à être pris au sérieux, comme le droit de résistance ou les zones de non-droit. Thoreau n'est pourtant hostile ni à l'idée d'association ni à une autorité qui préserve la liberté et la justice, et son oeuvre s'interroge sur ce qui constitue une société vraie. Il reconnaît les avancées du passé et le besoin continuel de faire évoluer nos sociétés. En revenant sur les contours de cette « loi suprême » à laquelle tout doit se conformer, nous signalons de nouveaux parallèles entre la pensée de Thoreau et celle des combattants pour la paix qui ont contribué à sa célébritéThis doctoral dissertation, based on Henry David Thoreau's complete published works, as well as some unedited manuscripts, attempts to identify the foundation of his political thought. A popular author, he has given rise to much controversy. His political rhetoric shows him to be a man concerned with conveying his political and social ideas, which prove to be more consistent than many of his critics have assumed. A hundred and fifty years alter his death, Thoreau innovatively presents us with the challenges our modem democracies are facing. He calls for a new understanding of the law and the possibility of citizens' actions, notably questioning the inflexibility of the State and the acceptance of areas of lawlessness or the right of resistance, principles that critics are only beginning to take seriously. Yet we show that Thoreau is not hostile to the notion of association nor to an authority which would preserve freedom and justice; he actually ponders on what constitutes a « truie society ». Thoreau also recognizes the progress made in the past and the need to still further advance our societies. As we elucidate the limits of this « higher law » which supersedes all, we expose new parallels between Thoreau's political thought and the philosophy of the peace activists who made him famous
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Bock, Jannika. "Concord in Massachusetts, discord in the world : the writings of Henry Thoreau and John Cage /." Frankfurt, M. ; Berlin Bern Bruxelles New York, NY Oxford Wien : Lang, 2008. http://d-nb.info/990258556/04.
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Jahanbegloo, Ramin. "Gandhi et la pensee occidentale (thoreau, ruskin, tolstoi)." Paris 4, 1998. http://www.theses.fr/1997PA040264.
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Cinquante apres son assassinat, m. K. Gamdhi reste indeniablement l'une des figures politiques et morales les plus marquantes de l'histoire de l'humanite. Homme d'une profondeur quasiment insondable et personnage hors de commun, gandhi etait a la fois un grand sage et un grand politicien. Au contraire des vieux sages indiens, gandhi considerait la politique comme une dimension de la vie humaine a trouvers laquelle il fallait essayer d'atteindre ce qu'il appelait "l'esprit de verite". La vision politique de gandhi se presente donc comme un nouvelle attitude dans la pensee politique de l'indemoderne. En verite l'attitude de gandhi en ce domaine releve strictement de son evolution spirituelle. On doit rappeler qu'il a ete profondement marque pas d'autres sources intellectuelles que la pensee indienne et notamment par trois grands penseurs du xixe siecle: ruskin, thoreau et tolstoi. Si le royaum de dieu est en vous de tolstoi permet a gandhi de vivifier sa passion pour la parole du christ et de raffermir sa foi en l'ahimsa, unto this last de ruskin, lui offre une nouvelle vision pratique de la vie de la communaute. Quant a h. D. Thoreau, il consolide intellectuellement la valeur de satyagraha inaugure par gandhi en afrique du sudMahatma gandhi was one of those rare human beings who was simultaneously a theoretician and practicioner of non-violence. Gandhi possessed an inner conviction that non-violence was not only one of the key words of his own century but of centuries still to come. It is in this sense that his ideas on non-violence and tolerance transcend the context of india itself, even though these ideas were initially conceived in relation to india's independence and future. Nevertheless, in spite of what may seem obvious, it is no mere truism to state that gandhi would not have been gandhi had he not been born indian. But at the same time, gandhi also sought support for his ideas of tolerance and non-violence in other cultures. In all likelihood, he was deeply influenced by three thinkers of the west: thoreau, ruskin andtolstoy. It was leo tolstoy who exerted the greatest influence on gandhi's thought through his concept of love. Thoreau's book, on the duty of civil disobedience provided gandhi with a solid foundation for his satyagraha in south africa. And last but not least, ruskin awakened gandhi's conscience on the idea of community and simplicity
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Gibbs, Jared Andrew. ""The Length of Our Vision": Thoreau, Berry, and Sustainability." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/32277.
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The past several years have seen increased awareness of environmental degradation,
climate change, and energy concernsâ and with good reason; addressing the problem of sustainability is vital if American culture is to both persist and thrive. Because this issue affects all aspects of our lives, it can easily seem overwhelming, encouraging the belief that solutions to these problems lie beyond the scope of individual action. This study seeks to identify legitimate personal responses one can make to issues of sustainability.
I approach this subject with an eye toward answering a simple series of questions: Where
are we?; How did we get here?; Where are we going?; Is that where we want to go? I briefly
investigate the history of the idea of progress, focusing especially on our cultureâ s fascination
with and embrace of technological progress. Following this investigation, I examine two works
that offer critiques of progress: Thoreauâ s classic text, Walden, and Wendell Berryâ s, The
Unsettling of America. These texts are chosen for a few reasons. First, a clear tradition of
critical inquiry can be traced from Thoreau to Berry. Second, the historical distance between
these authors makes a comparison of their work particularly illuminating. Though they are
citizens of the same country, speak the same language, and ask similar questions, each author
writes in response to different worldsâ Thoreauâ s just beginning to embrace industrial capitalism
and technological progress, and Berryâ s very much the product of that embrace. Most importantly, however, both authors focus on individual action and responsibility.Master of Arts
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Kerting, Verena. "Henry David Thoreau's aesthetics : a modern approach to the world /." Frankfurt-am-Main : P. Lang, 2006. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb402429803.
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Dickson, Emil. "Tuppens och Förmiddagens filosofer : Thoreau och Nietzsche och uppvaknandets filosofi." Thesis, Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Education, 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-1722.
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This paper is about the philosophies created by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). The purpose is to show the high degree of similarities between Thoreau’s and Nietzsche’s philosphy.
At first glance, it seems far-fetched to suggest an affinity between them; the differences in style and choice of subjects, have most certainly contributed to the fact that very few comparisons so far have been made. There is no evidence that one experienced any influence over the other, neither writer seems to have been aware of the other. Also their different areas of use during the 20th century, may have influenced the almost total lack of search for affinity. Thoreau’s philosphy has often been used by environmentalist movements, while Nietzsche has been connected to a wide range of various strivings, such as totalitarian regimes, individualistic artists and post-modern thinkers.
But if one disregard these facts, look beyond the differences, and break down their texts in search for their most fundamental opinions, one will see that Nietzsche and Thoreau shared a number of concerns. They were both ciritical to many aspects of the modern civilisation, espacially the way of life it encouraged. It was a life style, deep rooted in an obstructive tradition, that did not take the very essential conditions of life into consideration. This was both Thoreau’s and Nietzsche’s opinion, and their philosophies represent a willingness to re-establish a way of life that ignores all traditions hostile to life.
Both of them criticize the religion and its moral of work, the modern science, and many institutions of the modern society – the schools and the prisons for example. But they also praise things, things they claim to have a value in contrast to the modern way of life – the simple things. Both Thoreau and Nietzsche praise the solitude life style, the silent walking in the wilderness, the simple but healthy food, as well as some intellectual stimulus, especially good litterature and music. All these simple things contribute to Thoreau’s and Nietzsche’s opinion of life; it should be looked upon with the eyes of a child. Life should be like a play.
The title of this paper is Philosphers of the Rooster and the Morning. The title suggests the similarities I have found between Thoreau’s and Nietzsche’s philosophies. They both announce an awakening. For them, a new morning has broken, and this paper shows the similar circumstances they give credit for their awakening.
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Sánchez, Vera José Joaquín. "Thoreau as a Mirror for Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild." Thesis, Karlstads universitet, Fakulteten för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap (from 2013), 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-28447.
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Abstract To tell the nonfiction biography of Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild Jon Krakauer uses a plethora of references to Henry D. Thoreau. In this thesis I study how Krakauer uses Thoreau while balancing on the fine line that differentiates the historian from the storyteller. Through an analysis of Krakauer’s use of Thoreau’s economic ideas, liberal ideas, and view of nature and wilderness I argue that Krakauer blurs a pragmatic understanding of Thoreau and uses techniques of fiction to characterize McCandless as a late Thoreauvian transcendentalist. By doing so, Krakauer explains and defends the protagonist’s actions from criticism making him appear as a character whose story is exceptional. However, the characterization of the protagonist as a follower of Thoreauvian ideals by means of a partial and romantic interpretation of Thoreau is misleading and does not provide us with a better understanding of the life of McCandless. Moreover, the romantic image of Thoreau advanced by Krakauer reflects Krakauer, or at least his times; particularly, it reflects Krakauer’s own view of wilderness and his concern for its impending demise. Consequently, I conclude that Krakauer’s version of McCandless’s story is perhaps too biased to amount to a strong historical narrative and be considered proper nonfiction. Nevertheless, the romanticized characterization of McCandless aids Krakauer to write a more appealing story.
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Koch, Wilfried [Verfasser]. "Die Naturbeschreibung im Journal von Henry David Thoreau / Wilfried Koch." Frankfurt : Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2012. http://d-nb.info/1042470189/34.
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Follett, Danielle. "La Harpe éolienne et le hasard : Coleridge, Emerson, Thoreau, Cage." Paris 8, 2010. http://www.theses.fr/2010PA083355.
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La harpe éolienne est un instrument musical qui se compose d’une caisse de résonnance en bois et de cordes au travers desquelles le vent s’engouffre et produit ainsi des sons. Cet objet élémentaire devient une figure poétique, d’abord au XVIIIe siècle en Angleterre, puis à l’époque romantique dans les autres pays européens et aux Etats-Unis. Au cours de son développement, la harpe éolienne apparaît à la fois comme un instrument réel, un topos littéraire et philosophique, le modèle d’une activité cognitive et le modèle d’une pratique artistique. Nous retraçons l’histoire de ce dispositif à travers les œuvres de Samuel Taylor Coleridge, de Ralph Waldo Emerson, de Henry David Thoreau et de John Cage. L’esthétique propre à la harpe éolienne est celle de l’automatisme, où l’artiste cède une partie de l’initiative de la création à un autre agent que lui-même. Nous examinons donc les origines romantiques de l’utilisation contemporaine des méthodes aléatoires en esthétique, et avançons l’hypothèse qu’il existe une filiation majeure bien que souterraine entre les expérimentations d’avant-garde menées après-guerre et certaines formes du romantisme. Nous étudions donc en détail un type de relation qui se noue entre l’artiste et la nature ou l’environnement, avec ses enjeux métaphysiques et épistémologiques. L’ouverture de l’œuvre d’art à la vie, à la nature, et à l’imprévu que l’on peut constater au XXe siècle semble trouver un précédent dans la figure romantique de la harpe éolienne. C’est à l’histoire de cette ouverture esthétique que ce travail est consacréThe aeolian harp is an instrument that consists in a wooden sound box with strings, and that emits a sound when exposed to the wind. This simple object became a poetic figure first in eighteenth-century England and then during the romantic era in Europe and the United States. The wind harp has taken the form of a literal instrument, a literary and philosophical topos, a model of cognitive activity and a model of artistic practice. This thesis traces the history of this device through the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and John Cage. The aesthetics that corresponds with the wind harp is that of automatic spontaneity, in which the artist yields a part of his or her creative agency to another entity. The thesis examines the romantic origins of the contemporary aesthetic use of aleatory methods, and argues that there exists a strong though underground relation between post-war avant-garde experiments and certain forms of romanticism. It thus studies in detail a certain relation between the artist and nature or the environment, alongside the metaphysical and epistemological issues this relation implies. The twentieth-century opening of the artwork to life, nature and chance appears to have a precedent in the romantic figure of the wind harp. The history of this aesthetic opening is the subject of this thesis
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Liesemann, Thomas. "Wirklichkeit und Sprache : zur Funktion der Rhetorik in Henry David Thoreaus 'Walden' /." Heidelberg : C. Winter, 1995. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb38886762f.
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Talley, Sharon. "A Sensory Tour of Cape Cod: Thoreau's Transcendental Journey to Spiritual Renewal." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1999. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2264/.
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Predominantly darker than his other works, Cape Cod depicts Henry David Thoreau's interpretation of life as a struggle for survival and a search for salvation in a stark New England setting. Representing Thoreau's greatest test of the goodness of God and nature, the book illustrates the centrality of the subject of death to Thoreau's philosophy of life. Contending that Thoreau's journey to the Cape originated from an intensely personal transcendental impulse connected with his brother's death, this study provides the first in-depth examination of Thoreau's use of the five senses in Cape Cod to reveal both the eccentricities inherent in his relationship with nature and his method of resolving his fears of mortality. Some of the sense impressions in Cape Cod--particularly those that center around human death and those that involve tactile sensations--suggest that Thoreau sometimes tried to master his fears by subconsciously altering painful historical facts or by avoiding the type of sensual contact that aggravated the repressed guilt he suffered from his brother's death. Despite his personal idiosyncrasies, however, Thoreau persisted in his search for truth, and the written record of his journey in Cape Cod documents how his dedication to the transcendental process enabled him to surmount his inner turmoil and reconfirm his intuitive faith. In following this process to spiritual renewal, Thoreau begins with subjective impressions of nature and advances to knowledge of objective realities before ultimately reaching symbolic and universal truth. By analyzing nature's lessons as they evolve from Thoreau's use of his senses, this dissertation shows that Cape Cod, rather than invalidating Thoreau's faith, actually expands his transcendental perspective and so rightfully stands beside Walden as one of the fundamental cornerstones of his canon. In addition, the study proffers new support for previous psychoanalytical interpretations of Thoreau and his writings, reveals heretofore unrecognized historical inaccuracies in his account of the shipwreck that frames the book's opening, and provides the first detailed consideration of the linguistic implications of Cape Cod.
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Tapley, Lance. "A Universal and Free Human Nature: Montaigne, Thoreau, and the Essay Genre." Fogler Library, University of Maine, 2002. http://www.library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/TapleyL2002.pdf.
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Kleinhans, Jan-Peter. "Why are Gandhi and Thoreau AFK? : In Search for Civil Disobedience online." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Medier och kommunikation, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-204675.
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This thesis investigates if Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks constitute a valid form ofcivil disobedience online. For this purpose a multi-dimensional framework is established,drawing on Brownlee’s paradigm case and classical theory of civil disobedience. Threedifferent examples of DDoS attacks are then examined using this framework - the attacksfrom the Electronic Disturbance Theater in support of the Zapatista movement;Anonymous’ Operation Payback; Electrohippies’ attack against the World TradeOrganization. Following the framework, none of these DDoS attacks are able to constitute acivilly disobedient act online. The thesis then goes on and identifies four key issues, drawingon the results from the examples: The loss of 'individual presence', no inimitable feature ofDDoS attacks, impeding free speech and the danger of western imperialism. It concludes thatDDoS attacks cannot and should not be seen as a form of civil disobedience online. Thethesis further proposes that online actions, in order to be seen as civilly disobedient actsonline, need two additional features: An 'individual presence' of the protesters online tocompensate for the remoteness of cyberspace and an inimitable feature in order to berecognizable by society. Further research should investigate with this extended framework ifthere are valid forms of civil disobedience online.
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Henri, Tommy. "Le désir de solitude et l'expérience de la nature chez Rousseau et Thoreau." Master's thesis, Université Laval, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11794/69671.
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Le désir de solitude est omniprésent dans l'œuvre de Jean-Jacques Rousseau et de Henry David Thoreau. Dans leurs cas, elle s'accompagne d'une expérience de la nature. Ce mémoire propose une étude des raisons qui poussent ces deux auteurs à rechercher cette solitude. Le premier chapitre analyse la solitude originelle évoquée dans le Discours sur l'Origine et les Fondements de l'Inégalité parmi les Hommes. Rousseau y vante le mode de vie solitaire et autosuffisante de l'homme du pur état de nature. Nous verrons dans le deuxième chapitre, comment l'auteur explique dans les Lettres à Malesherbes et les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire sa nature solitaire et le rôle accessoire de la nature. Dans le troisième, nous examinons ses Confessions où il exprime son désir de vivre éloigné des hommes qui le tourmentent. Le quatrième chapitre est consacré à Thoreau et son désir de vivre une vie indépendante et délibérée en pleine nature. Il explique ce désir dans son livre bien connu Walden. Le cinquième chapitre se concentre sur les excursions de Thoreau.
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Toso, Norman Erec 1956. "A re-reading of the rhetorics of Thoreau: A case for dialogic teaching." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/290680.
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Reading Walden with an eye for contemporary issues in rheorical and composition theory, I contend that this work has much to offer a theory of dialogic pedagogy. Dialogic pedagogy advances a view that knowledge is situationally negotiated and contingent upon the limitations and exigencies of these situations. A pedagogy based on this theory should advance a self-reflective resistance to and critical awareness of socially organized knowledge and ideology; it should contribute to student awareness of knowledge as an "event" rather than static content. My thesis is that a re-reading of Walden can reveal another voice to add to the discussion of such a postmodern pedagogy. I read Thoreau as an advocate of an epistemology of qualified, experiential claim. This perspective claims a relationship between the authority of experience and that of specified, academic professional communities, relying on something like Burke's "identification" for rhetorical power rather than perceptions of the "air tight" logic of hegemonic discourse.
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Specq, François. "Le savant, le poète et le jardinier : le Journal de Thoreau et la condition poétique." Paris 7, 1995. http://www.theses.fr/1995PA070065.
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Cette these a pour objet de cerner d'aussi pres que possible la singularite des dernieres annees du journal d'henry david thoreau (1858-1861). Considerant qu'il ne peut etre defini de maniere adequate ni comme un document ni comme une oeuvre litteraire au sens du terme, notre etude se fonde sur l'idee que le lecteur doit faire corps avec le mouvement quotidien qu'il incarne. Nous tachons alors de montrer comment le journal se construit autour de la necessite de vaincre certaines forces-celles conduisant a l'abstraction de la science et au caractere desincarne d'un monde reduit a des designations refletant des conceptions utilaristes-et d'en liberer d'autres, qui reconnaissent la temporalite des choses et leurs libres relations avec l'homme ainsi confronte au mystere du monde et bien decide a en jouir. Ce desir d'un homme d'etre libre de tout engagement autre que celui de reprendre sans cesse son interrogation etonnee sur le monde, est a la fois le fondement et le moteur de ce que nous appelons la condition poetique. Il confere a l'ecriture de thoreau une intensite qui peut derouter, susciter l'admiration ou mettre mal a l'aise, mais qui la rend sensible a l'esprit et au coeur de ses lecteurs, alimentant ce dialogue sans lequel l'oeuvre d'art demeure inachevee. Notre etude etablit ainsi que, si thoreau peut etre considere comme un poete, ce qu'il a accompli excede les simples limites de l'art. Il s'agit d'un veritable mode de vie, d'une entreprise quotidiennement menee a bien par un homme dont l'entiere determination etait de mieux comprendre ce qui rend l'homme proprement humain : aux yeux de thoreau l'homme ne peut se definir par sa simple capacite a maitriser le monde, linguistiquement ou materiellement, mais par son engagement permanent a rendre possible la coexistence de l'action (le jardinier), de la connaissance (le savant) et de la contemplation (le poete), que ce soit au sein de l'individu ou de la societe tout entiereThis thesis attemps to elucidate the singular nature of the latter years of henry david thoreau'journal (1858-1861). Considering that it cannot be understood if regarded either as a document or a literary work in the strictest sense, out study assumes that one has got to get into step with the daily work it represents. Then we proceed to show how the journal develops from the awareness that different forces have to he defeated-those leading to the abstraction of science and the lifelessness of a world reduced to designations embodying utilitarian conceptions-and others released : those acknowledging the temporal existence of things and their free relations with a man thus brought face to face with the mystery of the world and determined to enjoy it. This desire to be free from any commitment other than that of taking up again and again the questioning of the world, is both the basis and the mainspring of what we call the poetic condition. It endows thoreau's writing with an intensity that can startle, delight or discomfort, but which carries his experience into the minds and hearts of his readers, creating that dialogue without which ar remains incomplete. Our study thus makes it clear that, if thoreau may be described as a poet, his achievement was more than art. It was a way of life, a venture carried out daily by a man single-minded in his quest, who was intent on a deeper understanding of what makes man really human : in thoreau's view man cannot be defined by his mere capacity to master the world, lingistically or materially, by his commitment to make action (the gardener), intelligence (the scientist) and contemplation (the poet) perpetueally harmonize, both within the individual and society
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Zandstra, Robert. "The Nature of the Secular: Religious Orientations and Environmental Thought in Nineteenth-Century American Literature." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/23099.
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My dissertation argues that changes in the structures and orientations of religious thought, changes commonly understood as secularization, have provided the intellectual underpinnings for the modern exploitation and ongoing destruction of the non-human world, which extend to the underwriting the devaluing and dehumanization of marginalized groups such as Native Americans. My work makes visible the secular assumptions of ecocriticism, which tends to blame Christianity for environmental problems. It also unwittingly relies on state-legitimating constructions of religion, simplistic religious-secular binaries, and outdated, false narratives of secularization. I theorize an ecocriticism “with/out the secular” to analyze secularity in both “secular” and “religious” settings, using the category of “religious orientation,” a tacit, pre-theoretical commitment that directs ultimate trust, structures meaning as it coheres in everyday life, and shapes ontological, epistemological, ethical, and other theories.
I examine how certain nineteenth-century authors, including Henry Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and Pequot minister William Apess, resisted this secularization within contemporaneous American culture and Christianity because of its epistemic devaluing of the natural world. Each of these authors has been read as an exemplar of secularization, but such interpretations reveal more about the secular commitments of literary critics than about the authors and their contexts. I show instead how modern religious constructions do not necessarily correlate with the deeper religious orientation of an author or the secularity or non-secularity of his or her arguments. Dickinson’s poetry and Thoreau’s A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers challenge dogmatic conceptions of heaven and Sabbath that are structured dualistically so as to devalue everyday earthly life. Yet they do so in non-dualistic ways that accord with a biblically rooted religious orientation of creation-fall-redemption-consummation. Their struggles against the church were against the church’s acceptance of dominant secularist ideologies that are ultimately at odds with Christianity and sustainable lifeways. Similarly, William Apess’ environmental justice work as a Native Christian against institutions dominated by white nationalist ideology demonstrate the how dualistic structures of secularity legitimate racism in conjunction with an anthropocentric that devalue the natural world.
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Fuller, Rachael Anora. "In Pursuit of "The Walden State-of-Mind": Henry David Thoreau in Charles Ives's Music." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1428944240.
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Wry, Joan. "The art of the threshold: a poetics of liminality in Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman." Thesis, McGill University, 2011. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=97124.
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Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman were all drawn to visions of transition in the natural world as a way to define the passage between world and self, but their focus on the endlessly unfolding potential of the aesthetic ideal in the "space between" gave rise to a poetics of liminality that makes them distinct. Emerson's foundational conceptions of passage and transition emerge most fully in the writings of Thoreau and Whitman in three interrelated contexts or modes of liminality which parallel—in ascending stages—Arnold van Gennep's rites de passage, the tripartite process of initiation, transformation, and reintegration so important in Victor Turner's later theory of liminality. For these three American Romantic authors, liminality can operate in moments of clear vision that stress marked outlines of boundaries or horizons; in transformative moments of interpenetrative exchange that fuse or confuse opposites across the threshold; or in transfiguring moments of sublimity. Here liminality involves a stress both on the physical place that serves as a borderline or threshold and on the process of passage across that threshold—the "limen" in which transformations are seen to be generated. The thesis first addresses the ways in which Emerson's key concepts and understandings of spiritual and aesthetic process initiated a widely influential vision of nineteenth-century liminal poetics. Thoreau's very different responses to the Emersonian model of transformation, as it unfolds within the definitive topos of the natural landscape, are then considered—first in the liminal spaces of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and Walden, and then in the darker allegorical contexts of The Maine Woods and Cape Cod. The final full chapter examines Whitman's later response to Emerson's liminal poetics, especially in the way that the persona of Leaves of Grass becomes a transitioning hero of consciousness and mediating interpreter of human experience—leading a community of readers out of stasis and through threshold moments of conversion. The study concludes with a brief epilogue outlining a subsequent trajectory for writing that emerges from Emerson's liminal poetics—an aesthetic perspective generated by the power (but also the indeterminacy) of continual regeneration and renewal.Emerson, Thoreau, et Whitman ont tous été attirés par des évocations de transition de la nature comme un moyen de définir le passage entre le monde et le moi, mais l'intérêt qu'ils ont porté au potentiel sans limites de l'esthétique idéale derrière le concept de « l'espace entre » a donné naissance à une poétique de liminalité qui les distinguent. Les conceptions fondatrices des notions de passage et de transition chez Emerson émergent en force dans les écrits de Thoreau et Whitman dans trois contextes ou modes inter reliés de liminalité, qui coïncident – en étapes ascendantes- aux Rites de passage d'Arnold van Gennep, processus triparti de l'initiation, de la transformation et de la réintégration, si importante à la théorie ultérieure de liminalité de Victor Turner. Pour ces trois auteurs américains romantiques, la liminalité agit dans des moments de clairvoyance qui soulignent les limites définies de frontières ou d'horizon ; dans des instants de transformation dus à des échanges inter pénétrants qui fusionnent ou confondent les opposés de chaque coté du seuil; ou en transfigurant des moments sublimes. Ici, la liminalité met l'accent sur le lieu physique qui sert comme ligne de démarcation ou seuil et sur le processus de passage de ce même seuil – le « limen » qui donne naissance aux transformations. La thèse s'intéresse d'abord aux façons dont les concepts phares d'Emerson et sa compréhension des processus spirituels et esthétiques ont amorcé une vision influente des poétiques de liminalité du dix-neuvième siècle. Les réponses très différentes de Thoreau au modèle émersonien de transformation, tel qu'il se dévoile dans les topos définitifs du paysage naturel, sont ensuite étudiés – d'abord dans les espaces liminaux de A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers et Walden, puis dans les contextes allégoriques plus sombres de The Maine Woods et Cape Cod. Le chapitre final examine la réponse ultérieure de Whitman aux poétiques liminales d'Emerson, notamment avec le personnage de Leaves of Grass, qui devient un héro transitoire de la conscience et un interprète médiateur de l'expérience humaine – guidant une communauté de lecteurs hors de l'immobilisme, à travers des moments critiques de transformation. L'étude se conclut avec un bref épilogue décrivant une trajectoire subséquente d'écriture qui émerge des poétiques liminales d'Emerson — une perspective esthétique générée par le pouvoir (mais aussi par l'indétermination) de la régénération continuelle et d'un renouveau.
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Magalhães, Marcelo Lins de. "Presságios literários e herança plástica: Emerson e Thoreau; Richard Serra, Waltercio Caldas e outros." Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2013. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=6098.
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Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de JaneiroO presente estudo ambiciona examinar as escritas literárias de Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) e Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) considerando-as como uma forma de presságio de arte na América, ou seja, como uma escrita literária que parece ter sido herdada no ambiente artístico das obras plásticas contemporâneas de Richard Serra (1939-) e Waltercio Caldas (1946-), entre outras. Tal herança endossa a noção de linguagem ordinária, compreendida como o ponto de acolhimento, ou de uma inquietação, que se faz presente nas circunstâncias da contemporaneidade. Por sua vez, o gesto de endereçamento que envolve estas escrituras expressa a marca de uma indecibilidade acerca da continuidade ou descontinuidade da existência de categorias como literatura, filosofia e artes. Assim, a problematização dessas remissões ganha vulto no presente estudo, por meio de uma abordagem em perspectiva comparada entre Thoreau, Emerson, Waltercio, Serra e outros. E deste modo, a questão que se estabelece nesse panorama diz respeito aos problemas do pensamento, que em âmbito plástico parecem se estender para uma tradição crítica no Novo Mundo
The following study aims to examine Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and Henry David Thoreaus (1817-1862) literary writings considering them as a form of omen of art in America, in other words, as a literary writing that seems to have been inherited from the artistic environment of the contemporary art works by Richard Serra (1939-) and Waltercio Caldas (1946-), among others. Such heritage endorses the notion of ordinary language, understood as the point of reception, or the point of an uneasiness, that was present in the contemporary circumstances. In turn, the addressing gesture which involves these scriptures express the mark of an undecidability on the continuity or discontinuity of the existence of categories such as literature, philosophy and arts. Thus, the problematization of these remissions obtains prominence in this study, by means of a comparative approach among Thoureau, Emerson, Waltercio, Serra and others. In this way, the question that is established in this panorama concerns the thought problems, which in the plastic scope seem to be extended up to a criticism tradition in the New World
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Nègre, Julien. "L' arpenteur et le vagabond : cartes et cartographies dans l'oeuvre de Henry David Thoreau." Paris 7, 2014. http://books.openedition.org/enseditions/11632.
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Arpenteur de métier et fin connaisseur des cartes, Thoreau appréciait leur exactitude et le savoir immédiat et panoptique qu'elles produisent sur l'espace. Cependant, il savait aussi que, dans l'Amérique des années 1840-50, celles-ci pouvaient servir des projets d'appropriation ou d'exploitation, et que le cadastre dresse un enclos qui fige et limite les possibles. Ce travail de thèse reconstitue l'importante documentation cartographique de cet auteur et identifie les cartes consultées, copiées et annotées au cours de sa vie d'écrivain, pour montrer comment le texte devient le lieu où Thoreau, arpenteur et vagabond, conjugue son goût pour la précision cartographique et son attrait pour l'inattendu, la désorientation et l'extravagance - lexicale et politique tout à la fois. Le chapitre 1 s'interroge sur la nature du geste cartographique et identifie à l'aide d'une importante iconographie les quatre types de cartes que Thoreau connaissait. Le chapitre 2 s'intéresse aux textes des années 1840 et montre comment Thoreau y déconstruit la notion de découverte chère à son époque. Le chapitre 3 s'intéresse à Walden, Cape Cod et The Maine Woods et établit que ces récits sont fondés sur une riche documentation cartographique, que l'écriture s'efforce cependant de défaire en multipliant les phénomènes de désorientation. Le chapitre 4 s'intéresse aux textes politiques de Thoreau et montre que son expérience d'arpenteur est le point de départ d'une réflexion sur la langue et les découpages qu'elle opère. Le chapitre 5 examine les textes tardifs de Thoreau sur la nature et propose de les lire comme l'aboutissement de la réflexion de Thoreau sur l'espace et la communautéAs a professional surveyor, Thoreau was familiar with maps and their history. He appreciated their exactitude and the immediate and panoptic knowledge of space one can gain from them. Yet he was also aware that they could be used for territorial appropriation and exploitation - especially in the 1840s and 50s in the US - and that mapping draws enclosures that limit the scope of possibilities. This thesis is a detailed study of the numerous maps used, copied and annotated by Thoreau in the course of his writing career. As a surveyor and a saunterer all at once, Thoreau conceived of his texts as the place where he could combine his fascination with cartographic accuracy and his taste for lexical as well as political disorientation and extravagance. Chapter 1 examines the nature of mapping processses and identifies the four types of maps that Thoreau was familiar with. Chapter 2 looks at the texts written in the 1840s and shows how Thoreau questions the very notion of discovery - a central idea in his time. Chapter 3 shows how Waiden, Cape Cod and The Maine Woods were written with the help of specific maps, even as Thoreau's prose takes the form of an exercise in disorientation. Chapter 4 addresses Thoreau's political essays and shows how his experience as a surveyor was the starting point for a reflection on language and the way it maps the world. Chapter 5 looks at later texts about nature and reads them as the achievement of Thoreau's reflections on space and community
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Graefe, Emily. "Charles Ives and Transcendentalism in the 114 Songs." Thesis, Boston College, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/486.
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Thesis advisor: Jeremiah McGrannThe effect of transcendentalism on American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954) is examined in this study. Certain pieces in Ives' 114 Songs collection are musically analyzed to better understand Ives' interpretation of three main tenets of transcendentalism (the individual, the past, and nature). Scholarly criticism and a historical background of transcendentalism are discussed as well
Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2004
Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Music
Discipline: College Honors Program
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Bagley, S. H. "Man Thinking about Nature: The Evolution of the Poet's Form and Function in the Journal of Henry David Thoreau 1837-1852." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1411121082.
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Granger, Michel. "Narcisse a walden : la production de l'image de soi dans l'oeuvre de henry d. thoreau." Lyon 2, 1987. http://www.theses.fr/1987LYO20016.
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Cette etude traite de la production de l'image de soi entre 1845 et 1854: thoreau cree le personnage idealise du narrateur de walden grace auquel il restaure son narcissisme, blesse de n'avoir reussi a s'inserer normalement dans la societe. Lors de la retraite a walden pond, il s'efforce de trouver une solution a sa crise d'identite: il imagine un mode de vie ascetique, conforme a ses aspirations, qui lui laisse le temps de vivre dans la nature, mais aussi de se consacrer a la litterature. A travers le compte-rendu de son experience, il concoit un masque exemplaire qui lui permet de parler de lui-meme et de soutenir le regard d'autrui. La perspective ouverte par l'analyse de la crise narcissique permet de mieux comprendre le sens de l'idealisation a laquelle il soumet l'indien solitaire: thoreau s'identifie a ce modele imaginaire qui, nourri par l'ideologie de l'innocence primitive, le confirme dans sa resistance a la societe. Elle explique aussi l'evitement du temps mesure et l'amenagement d'un espace vital restreint. Walden pond constitue un refuge intermediaire, propre a attenuer les contraintes de la realite et a reconcilier illusoirement les oppositions qui divisent son monde. La creation thoreauvienne est fortement marquee par l'investissement de l'espace: la topographie sert d'ecran de projection au narrateur et lui renvoie une image unifiee de lui-meme. Thoreau se presente sous les traits d'un personnage autonome, auto-engendre, d'un sage qui a su maitriser sa violence interieure, se purifier des pulsions jugees inacceptables, et eliminer tout ce qui n'entre pas dans son projet, alors que l'ecriture, destinee a elaborer un langage nouveau, s'ouvre sur l'inconnu, l'impensable qui ne peut etre reduit a la visee idealisante; elle participe a la quete d'identite et enrichit l'image de soi. La perception du role determinant du narcissisme dans l'oeuvre de thoreau devrait aider a depasser les reactions de rejet ou de fascination provoquees par son personnage hautain et agressif, mais surtout inciter le lecteur a se mettre a l'ecoute des qualites poetiques du texteThis study deals with the production of the self-image in the years 1845-54: thoreau created the idealized character of the narrator in walden with whom he restored his narcissism which had been wounded by his failure to join society normally. During his retreat to walden pond, he endeavored to work out a solution to his identity crisis: he imagined an ascetic way of life in conformity with his aspirations, which gave him the opportunity to live in the midst of nature, but also to spare time for literature. Through the report of his experiment, he conceived an exemplary persona which enabled him to speak about himself and to venture before readers. The outlook offered by the analysis of the narcissistic crisis allows to better understand the meaning of the idealization to which he subjected the solitary indian: thoreau identified himself with this imaginary model sustained by the ideology of primitive innocence, which confirmed him in his resistance to society. It also explains his avoidance of measured time and his organization of a confined vital space. Walden pond constituted a transitional refuge, suited to lessen the constraints of reality and to devise the illusory reconciliation of the oppositions which divided his world. Thoreauvian creation is marked by a strong interest in space: topography serves as a screen on to which the narrator projects himself, and sends back a unified self-image. Thoreau represented himself as an autonomous, self-engendered character, as a wise man who succeeded in mastering his inner violence, in purifying himself of his unacceptable drives and in eliminating all that is not consistent with his project, while writing, intended to elaborate a new language, is open to the unknown, the unthinkable which cannot be reduced to the idealizing design; it participates in the quest for identity and adds to the self-image. The realization of the decisive role played by narcissism in thoreau's work should help transcend the reactions of rejection or fascination caused by his haughty and aggressive persona, but above all, it should incite the reader to listen to the poetic qualities of the text
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Granger, Michel. "Narcisse à Walden la production de l'image de soi dans l'oeuvre de Henry D. Thoreau /." Lille 3 : ANRT, 1988. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb376055704.
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Foley, Stephanie Brewer. "Perspectives on Nature: A Comparison of the Views of Thomas Jefferson and Henry David Thoreau." W&M ScholarWorks, 1994. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539625921.
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Klevay, Robert. "Puckish ambivalence Thoreau's mock-heroic use of classical literature /." Access to citation, abstract and download form provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company; downloadable PDF file, 204 p, 2009. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1891601511&sid=5&Fmt=2&clientId=8331&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Sennett, Evan James. "Sky Water: The Intentional Eye and the Intertextual Conversation between Henry David Thoreau and Harlan Hubbard." University of Toledo Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=uthonors1544635048555133.
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Manglis, Alexandra. "Fathoming the depths of Thoreauvian time." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0257d110-915d-4746-958b-eaf15e6e225c.
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This thesis endeavors to engage in contemporary Thoreauvian scholarship by providing an original reading of Thoreau’s works using a critical framework based on Wai Chee Dimock’s concept of “deep time.” As such, it argues that Thoreau’s infamous embrace of political and rhetorical dissent takes shape in his writings most strongly in his construction of time-frames that break with or stand against his contemporaries’ own use, sense, and measuring of time in antebellum New England. Focusing on two aspects of Henry David Thoreau’s work, the thesis argues firstly that Walden’s resistance to familiar, sequential understandings of time manifests in myth, wherein time and history are shaped holistically rather than sequentially. Secondly, it posits that Thoreau’s excursion narratives resist the dominant recordings of history of his time by forming alternative historiographies within their structures, accommodating otherwise silent or ignored historical elements, at the expense of otherwise smooth, uninterrupted narratives. Having thus established Thoreau’s temporal structures, the thesis goes on to look at Annie Dillard and Susan Howe in order to trace out Thoreau’s previously unacknowledged formation of temporal structures in his texts as a genealogy that emerges in late twentieth-century American literature. Consequently, the thesis provides an alternative reading of Thoreau that moves toward a rethinking of his location in nineteenth-century America and its twentieth-century literature.
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LeRud, Elizabeth. "Antagonistic Cooperation: Prose in American Poetry." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/22646.
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Poets and critics have long agreed that any perceived differences between poetry and prose are not essential to those modes: both are comprised of words, both may be arranged typographically in various ways—in lines, in paragraphs of sentences, or otherwise—and both draw freely from the complete range of literary styles and tools, like rhythm, sound patterning, focalization, figures, imagery, narration, or address. Yet still, in modern American literature, poetry and prose remain entrenched as a binary, one just as likely to be invoked as fact by writers and scholars as by casual readers. I argue that this binary is not only prevalent but also productive for modern notions of poetry, the root of many formal innovations of the past two centuries, like the prose poem and free verse. Further, for the poets considered in this study, the poetry/prose binary is generative precisely because it is flawed, offering an opportunity for an aesthetic critique.
“Antagonistic Cooperation: Prose in American Poetry” uncovers a history of innovative writing that traverses the divide between poetry and prose, writing that critiques the poetry/prose binary by combining conventions of each. These texts reveal how poetry and prose are similar, but they also explore why they seem different and even have different effects. When these writers’ texts examine this binary, they do so not only for aesthetic reasons but also to question the social and political binaries of modern American life—like rich/poor, white/black, male/female, gay/straight, natural/artificial, even living/dead—and these convergences of prose and poetry are a textual “space” each writer creates for representing those explorations. Ultimately, these texts neither choose between poetry and prose nor do they homogenize the two, affirming instead the complex effects that even faulty distinctions may have had historically, and still have, on literature—as on life. By confronting differences without reducing or erasing them, these texts imagine ways to negotiate and overcome modes of ignorance, invisibility, and oppression that may result from these flawed yet powerful dichotomies.
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Meier, Lori T. "Thoreau as Unexpected Visitor: Strategies and Discourse to Encourage Mindful, Democratic Community in Elementary Social Studies Teacher Education." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2016. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/5901.
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O'Malley, Matthew L. "Such Building Only Takes Care: A Study of Dwelling in the Work of Heidegger, Ingold, Malinowski, and Thoreau." The Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1405955994.
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Grover, Breanne. "An Awakened Sense of Place: Thoreauvian Patterns in Willa Cather's Fiction." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2006. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd1443.pdf.
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BARBERO, CAMILLA. "Nuovi paesaggi, antiche memorie. L'immaginario della natura selvaggia dalla crisi ecologica alle origini mitiche della civiltà occidentale: una narrazione per concetti." Doctoral thesis, Politecnico di Torino, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11583/2644610.
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Una nuova wilderness si esprime nei discorsi e nelle pratiche contemporanee di paesaggio. Nella prospettiva ecologica è vista come natura spontanea che finalmente guadagna terreno sulla civiltà occidentale, riconquistando lo spazio antropizzato: urbano, rurale o industriale; quasi invocando una rivoluzione culturale.
La dimensione della natura selvaggia è da tempo immemore luogo di sovversione, di critica alla civiltà e quindi anche di suo rinnovamento e rinascita. I nuovi paesaggi svelano antiche memorie, si muovono fra continuità e discontinuità, attraverso la paradossalità costitutiva di questa dimensione sentita come alternativa e “altra” rispetto a cultura e civiltà, e al tempo stesso così peculiarmente umana: wilderness o wildness come esperienza del limite, affascinante avventura al di là dell’umano alla quale ci invitano le nostre narrazioni, le nostre mitologie.
La tesi stessa si propone infatti come una narrazione: attraverso gli strumenti della storia delle idee ricerca all’interno della nostra – occidentale - eredità immaginativa i significati etici ed estetici che la natura selvaggia può assumere oggi, sul filo di un ideale dialogo tra Henry David Thoreau e il giardiniere-paesaggista francese Gilles Clément.
Un abisso di tempo e spazio li separa, una divergente maniera d’intendere la vita e il ruolo dell’uomo nel mondo. Eppure entrambi muovono da una decisa polemica alla società in cui vivono. Entrambi lontani dalle nostalgie del passato, raccontano, inventano o reinventano fiduciosamente un futuro possibile: in una prospettiva capace forse di dirigere il nostro sguardo verso un’ecologia umanista, attraverso le paradossali metafore dei tanti giardini selvaggi della contemporaneità.
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Sandstra, Theodore. "A framework for the love of nature : Henry David Thoreau's construction of the Wild in Walden and the gift as an ethos for architecture." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape2/PQDD_0034/MQ64120.pdf.
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Nyman, Jon. "Nature and Culture: Teaching Environmental Awareness Through Literature." Thesis, Högskolan i Halmstad, Sektionen för lärarutbildning (LUT), 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-25701.
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Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka och tolka relationen mellan koncepten natur och kultur, så som de är hanterade i Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; or. Life in the Woods (1854) och Into the Wild (1996) av Jon Krakauer, med hjälp av en ekokritisk analys. Båda dessa böcker är baserade på verkliga händelser och upplevelser, och handlar om två individer som valde att lämna samhället bakom sig för att i stället leva ett enkelt liv i naturen. Några av motiven de hade för att göra detta innefattar ett missnöje med samhällena i vilka de levde, en längtan efter extraordinära upplevelser, och en önskan att hitta medel att förbättra jaget. Jag kommer föreslå att de båda huvudkaraktärerna delar åsikter och tankar om naturen och dess relation till deras respektive kulturer. Vidare kommer jag föreslå att några av dessa åsikter och tankar kan och bör implementeras i det svenska skolväsendet i syfte att åstadkomma en mer hållbar syn på naturen och dess relation till kultur och samhälle. Jag kommer föreslå en möjlig metod för att genomföra detta, vilken är inspirerad av Greg Garrard’s lektionsplan ”Three Hours to Save the Planet!”, som finns inkluderad i The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy: skills for a changing world (ed. Arran Stibbe, 2009).
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Guest, Bertrand. "Écritures révolutionnaires de la nature au XIXème siècle : géographie et liberté dans les essais sur le cosmos d'Alexander von Humboldt, Henry David Thoreau et Elisée Reclus." Thesis, Bordeaux 3, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013BOR30058.
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Comment s’articulent, autour des rapports entre l’homme et la nature, les pratiques scientifiques du naturaliste et du géographe, une pensée politique s’étendant du libéralisme à l’anarchisme et un style d’écrivain ? C’est la question que posent, singulièrement à la forme de l’essai, les œuvres d’Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), de Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) et d’Élisée Reclus (1830-1905). Dans un large XIXème siècle à envisager comme période révolutionnaire marquée par l’effacement des terræ incognitæ, le recul de la nature « sauvage » et les soubresauts économiques et politiques (Révolution Industrielle et révolutions politiques faisant se succéder les régimes), ces figures qu’il faut relire comme d’authentiques écrivains allient au sein d’une politique de la nature la géographie de la Terre à celle de l’Homme, et leurs expériences personnelles de la nature (du voyage d’exploration à l’habitat) à une pensée de la communauté allant et venant de l’individu à l’humanité, du micro- au macrocosme. Héritiers des Lumières luttant contre l’esclavage, le despotisme et le colonialisme, qu’ils documentent, ces essayistes qui refusent de laisser la science aux mains d’une caste positiviste et ethnocentriste sont les vulgarisateurs et les prophètes d’une démocratie littéraire en construction. Ils sont les pionniers d’une exploration moderne des rapports entre écriture et connaissance, les témoins essentiels d’une différenciation des savoirs que leur pratique littéraire universaliste entend conjurer. Tout l’enjeu consiste à perpétuer une approche de la nature comme un ensemble (cosmos) au moment même où elle se trouve, en tant qu’objet, divisée entre création littéraire et savoir savant. A l’aube de l’écologie littéraire et dans cette description d’un monde où chaque chose dépend de chacune des autres, la pratique de l’essayiste semble être la seule à pouvoir porter ce discours complexe, à la fois politique, scientifique et littéraireHow can the naturalist’s and the geographer’s scientific enquiries, a political thought ranging from liberalism to anarchism, and a writer’s style all revolve around the relationship between Man and Nature ? Such is a question raised —especially with regards to the Essay genre— by the works of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) and Élisée Reclus (1830-1905). Within the bounds of a longer 19th century, which can be seen as an age of revolutions marked by the fading off of terræ incognitæ, the dwindling of the Wilderness, and a series of economical and political fits (Industrial and Political revolutions triggering the succession of strings of regimes), it appears critical to reconsider these names as those of genuine authors. From the heart of a politics of nature, they bind together the geographies of Man and the Earth, and their personal experience of Nature (as explored or inhabited) with a thought of community ceaselessly shifting from the Individual to the Human Kind, from the Microcosm to the Macrocosm. These Essay writers are the heirs of the Enlightenment in their struggle against slavery, despotism and colonialism (which they document); they object to leaving science in the hand of a positivistic, ethnocentric caste —they are the authors of popular sciences and the prophets of a literary democracy in the making. They are the pioneers of a modern exploration of the relationship between writing and knowledge, the crucial witnesses of a gradual differentiation of sciences that their universalistic literary paradigm sets out to avert. The ultimate point is to carry on approaching Nature as a whole (cosmos) in an era bringing about its division, as an object, into two separate categories of literary creation and scholarly knowledge. In the dawning light of literary ecology, and in this world description in which all things depend on all things, the work of the Essay-writer seems to be the only one able to voice this complex speech, made of politics, science and literature all together
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Yáñez, Velasco Marcos. "El bosque literario: Genealogía de un paisaje simbólico." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/462116.
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El bosque siempre ha sido un lugar confuso para el orden social y la lógica convencional, incluso tras haber perdido su carácter salvaje. Este trabajo pretende ofrecer una imagen global sobre las formas en las que el bosque como paisaje simbólico ha pervivido en el imaginario colectivo a través de la narrativa, el ensayo y la lírica del S. XX. Estas formas tienen que ver con su versatilidad como imagen de la complejidad y con un lugar íntimo que provoca la introspección, la revelación de caracteres identitarios y la resistencia ante poderes políticos o movimientos sociales. La escasez de estudios que se dediquen exhaustivamente a esta figura y la cantidad de obras en las que el bosque tiene un papel preeminente nos permiten utilizar un enfoque fenomenológico que se completará con una fundamentación del símbolo a partir del estudio de sus evocaciones a lo largo de la historia de occidente.Forest has always been a confusing place to social order and conventional logic, even after losing their wild character. This work aims to offer a global picture about the ways in which, as a symbolic landscape, forest has survived in the western collective imagination through the narrative, essay and poetry of the 20th century. These ways have to do with its versatility as the image of complexity and an intimate place that provokes introspection, revelation of identity characters and resistance to political powers or social movements. The scarcity of studies extensively engaged in this figure and the amount of works in which forest has a pre-eminent role allows us to use a phenomenological approach that it will be completed with a justification of the symbol from the study of the evocations throughout the history of the West.
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Eisenman, Matthew S. "Hawthorne's Transcendental Ambivalence in Mosses from an Old Manse." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2011. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_theses/114.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s collection of short stories, Mosses from an Old Manse, serves as his contribution to the philosophical discussions on Transcendentalism in Concord, MA in the early 1840s. While Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and the other individuals involved in the Transcendental club often seem to readily accept the positions presented in Emerson’s work, it is never so simple for Hawthorne. Repeatedly, Hawthorne’s stories demonstrate his difficulty in trying to identify his own opinion on the subject. Though Hawthorne seems to want to believe in the optimistic potential of the spiritual and intellectual ideal presented in Emersonian Transcendentalism, he consistently dwells on the evil and blackness that may be contained in the human heart. The collection of short stories written while Hawthorne lived in Concord and surrounded himself with those dominant literary figures represents the clearest articulation of his ambivalent position on Transcendentalism.
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Ackerman, Joy Whiteley. "Walden: A Sacred Geography." Antioch University / OhioLINK, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=antioch1268155007.
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Andrews, Stephen R. "Salvaging Virginia : transitivity, race and the problem of consent /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9464.
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Meyers, Amanda. "The interrelationships of nature based on Thoreau's Walden and Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis." Thesis, This resource online, 1994. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-06112009-063601/.
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Chodat, Robert. "Games of circles : dialogic irony in Carlyle's Sartor resartus, Melville's Moby Dick, and Thoreau's Walden." Thesis, McGill University, 1995. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=23713.
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This thesis examines the connections between three frequently associated nineteenth-century texts, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, Melville's Moby Dick, and Thoreau's Walden. It begins by reviewing the contexts normally offered for them, and then proposes an alternative one, "dialogic irony," that is based upon the complementary theoretical models of Friedrich Schlegel and Mikhail Bakhtin. After this conceptual background is outlined, the various modes of dialogic irony presented in the three works are discussed. That of Walden arises out of a close analogy between self and text: both are a series of inner voices juxtaposed with and often contradicting one another. Sartor complicates this relatively unobstructed form of selfhood through the inclusion of the Editor, whose unitary voice represents a challenge to the kind of selfhood sanctioned by Walden. Moby Dick also challenges dialogic irony, but its forms of opposition are more penetrating and various: while in Carlyle's text dialogic irony is ultimately affirmed through the figure of Teufelsdrockh, Ishmael is left stranded and displaced by the multitude of voices in his text. Melville's work therefore provides an excellent way to review and critique some of the prevailing assumptions about dialogue in contemporary criticism, a task sketched in the conclusion.
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Lang, Christopher T. "The importance of consciousness and the mind/body problem exploring social systems of containment in 19th century American literature /." Instructions for remote access. Click here to access this electronic resource. Access available to Kutztown University faculty, staff, and students only, 2006. http://www.kutztown.edu/library/services/remote_access.asp.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 2006.Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2833. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as 1 leaf (iii). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 461-474).
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Honeycutt, Scott R. "Beautiful Day. Pleasant Walk: Walking and Landscape in the Works of Eswick Evans, John D. Godman, Elizabeth Fries Ellet, and Bradford Torrey." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2012. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_diss/89.
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Throughout the nineteenth century, walking for leisure and for spiritual endeavor in America correlated with the rise of literary romanticism. This burgeoning fashion of pedestrian travel, coupled with an impulse to experience the ever expanding nation, spawned a new and enduring subgenre in American letters – the walking text. Many scholars consider Henry David Thoreau and John Muir to be the century’s greatest literary amblers and naturalists; while their catalogs of walking literature are foundational, they are not exclusive. “Beautiful Day. Pleasant Walk: Walking and Landscape in Works of Estwick Evans, John D. Godman, Elizabeth Fries Ellet, and Bradford Torrey” aims to establish the importance of several underappreciated nineteenth century American pedestrians and landscapes. In addition to analyzing the development and importance of walking texts throughout the century, this dissertation also considers the geographies over which the authors traveled. The northern grounds of Ohio’s forgotten Great Black Swamp (Evans) and Philadelphia’s bucolic Wissahickon Creek (Godman), team with the southern worlds of rural Antebellum landscapes (Ellet) and Civil War battlefields (Torrey) to create a compelling map of nineteenth century America. Finally, through first-hand, authorial accounts this study discusses each terrain’s historical contexts as well as their current conditions.