Henry-David-Thoreau.5ppt

1、Henry David Thoreaul l ThoreaulBorn July 12, 1817 in Concord, Mass.lFamilys religious backgroundlWent to Harvard in 1833 (16 years old)Became a teacher (1837)Opened a private school (1838-41) 1841, Emerson invited Thoreau to be his handyman.Free room and board.l editing The Dial1845-47Lived at Walde

2、n Pond. 1846 Spent a night in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax(人头税）1849 A Week on the Concord & Merrimack Rivers (“Civil Disobedience”) published same yearlDied in 1862 of tuberculosis at age 44.lOn his deathbed, he expressed no regrets for the life he had lived.Aunt asked him, “Have you made

3、 your peace with God?”His reply: “We never quarreled.”Thoreaus significancelAmericas greatest nature writer.lHis basic concern was not with nature itself but with mans place in nature.lWalden is an eloquent account of his experiment in near-solitary living in close harmony with nature. it is also an

4、 expression of his transcendentalist, it philosophyThoreaul我走入林中，因为想从容地生活。我希望可以生活得深邃并领悟生命的精髓，摒除所有不属于生活的东西。当我即将辞世的时候，我不想发现自己从未真正生活过。l Walden Pond park area was saved from being built on because of his writings. Over 600,000 visitors annually to Walden Pond A copy of the one-room cabin near the Walden

5、 pond where Thoreau lived. The cottage is not far from Walden Pond.Walden Pond summer and fallWaldenl“I do not propose to write an ode to dejection(depression), but to brag as lustily as a chanticleer公鸡in the morning, standing on his roost, of only to waken up my neighbor.”lFor a man is rich in prop

6、ortion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone WaldenlMorningstook his bath in the pond and then hoed in his garden.stormy days or winter mornings he read or wrotelAfternoons spent wandering through the Concord woods or boating on its ponds and rivers.lEveningsdevoted to his friends

7、 with either a trip to the village or by having a few guests in his cabin.Civil Disobedience (1849)lgrew out of an overnight stay in prison(1846) because of his refusal to pay a poll tax(人头税） that supported the Mexican War, which to Thoreau represented an effort to extend slavery. lThoreaus advocacy

8、 of civil disobedience as a means for the individual to protest those actions of his government that he considers unjust .“Civil Disobedience”lThoreaus chief purpose was to persuade men to return again to the superior standard of absolute truth. lWhen moral law and governmental law come into conflic

9、t Civil Disobedience”lHe has been influential worldwide.l It was Gandhis guidebook for his campaign to free India from British rule.lIt was used by blacks for struggles for Civil Rights in the South lMartin Luther King, Jr.His philosophy :lemphasized the dynamic ecology of the natural world. lhis qu

10、iet, one-man revolution in living at Walden has become a symbol of the willed integrity of human beings, their inner freedom, and their ability to build their own lives. l 2 Man as part of nature lThoreau counters the separation of man from society by conceiving of man as a part of nature. Through h

11、is life in the woods, living for the most part off the fruits of the land and deriving intellectual stimulation from plants and animals, Summary of the excerptlWhere I Lived, and What I Lived For, talks about how he once considered buying the Hollowell farm for himself but the purchase fell through.

12、 Instead, he created a new existence for himself at Walden, where he found joy and fulfillment in nature, truly awakening in his mornings there, while most of society remains perpetually asleep, living mean lives when the possibility of a much better life is possible. The key to achieving such a life, he says, is simplicity. l Theme of Waldenl1 The slumbering of mankind and need for spiritual awakening: l without considering the greater questions and meaning of existence.seek a spiritual awakening. l2 Man as part of nature: l3 The destr