Abstract
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is one of the greatest writers of the 19th-century American. His work involves a wide range, and is a precious literary and cultural heritage of American society. Thoreau is known as a natural interpretation literature and the first American environmentalists Saints in the history of American. In his representative book Walden, he keeps a detailed record of his life experiences and ideas at Walden.
Thoreau goes to Walden Pond to live alone, mainly due to both internal and external factors. External factor is that people ignore the spiritual pursuit while gaining material wealth and consuming natural resources. In order to awaken the world, Thoreau decided to move to Walden looking for the ideal life. The internal factor is that his deeply influence of Transcendentalism. Different from other transcendentalists, Thoreau is a transcendentalism practitioner. He went to Walden Pond to experience the transcendental ideas and find humans an appropriate location in the nature.
Thoreau’s mental world experiences three processes while living alone at Walden Pond. They are natural realm, scientific realm and literary realm. First of all, Thoreau lives a simple life and limits life needs to a minimum. Only in way people can experience life, or they will take living as the purpose of existence. Second, Thoreau lives a scientific and cautious life. He analysis and records nature as carefully as a scientist trying to find the essence of life through the change of seasons. He makes full use of natural revelation, blending his own ideas to the record of the nature, to make the true nature without boring. Thoreau has sharp eyes that can find the beauty of nature. He ultimately gets spiritual sublimation by careful observation of the world around.
Thoreau’s ideal life is a simple life harmony with nature. The lifestyle he advocates undoubtedly provides us with a unique point of view and points out a road to deal with the relationship between man and nature.
Key words: Henry David Thoreau, Walden, mental world, sublimation ，英语论文网站，英语论文题目 |
