Writing the Wild: Nature, Culture, and American Literature

I like the discussions that were beginning to unfold last class when we broke down into smaller groups and started thinking through those four questions. The only problem was not having enough time to adequately work through them, and then discuss the questions at-large with the rest of the class (which I will certainly organize otherwise next time, should we do that again: in fact, I’d appreciate student input here. Do you want more such smaller discussions?).

Thus, I wanted to provide a space on the blog if anyone wanted to take those questions as a lead into a comment or post, or to elaborate more on any other aspect of Thoreau’s essay that we didn’t have time to discuss in the seminar. Here are the questions again:

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1) Analyze the structure of “Walking.” How is the essay put together, what kinds of components make up its whole? What rhetorical strategies does Thoreau use? How are anecdotes employed, alongside the arguments?

2) Describe the numerous ways that Thoreau treats the idea of “civilization” in the essay. Locate passages where “civilization” seems to be a key word.

3) An idea of the frontier and a progression from east to west is extensively treated on pages 217—223. Analyze this directional metaphor—what is Thoreau saying? Where do specific ideas about America and American nationality become invoked, and placed within this east—west continuum?

4) How does Thoreau describe the place of poetry, literature, and mythology in relationship to the “wild”? What does Thoreau mean when he complains that “that English literature… breathes no quite fresh and, in this sense, wild strain,” (231) and then asks “Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature?” (232)

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And a P.S. — as promised, the books by Arthur Versluis that deal with the Transcendentalists’ reading of Eastern religious texts, especially Buddhism in the case of Thoreau, are now on the bibliography. Just so you know!