For the Class of September 21st: the Environmental Imagination of Thoreau's Walden (and Emerson's Nature)
These are the reading prompts for you to comment on the texts for this week (with lovely pic of Margarida in Walden pond at the bottom!). You can choose one of the questions, or weave more than one into a commentary.
1. Lawrence Buell, in the intro to The Environmental Imagination (1999), refers to "literature's capacity for articulating the non-human environment" (10). Do Emerson and (or) Thoreau achieve these goals? In what (different) ways?
2. Buell also posits, in pp. 7-8, four ingredients that should comprise the more ecocentric texts... Can you pick up from the Walden excerpts parts that exemplify such ingredients, and briefly analyse them?
3. Write a short text analysis of the passage, on pp. 2127-28, that begins "The whole bank, which is from twenty to forty feet high" and ends with "we may turn over a new leaf at last".
Reading prompt nº3:
ReplyDeleteIn the excerpt Thoreau observes and describes the details of what he calls “sand foliage”, which are markings formed by thawing sand and clay nearby the railroad cut close to Walden Pond. The author considers these designs as a foreshadowing of spring, since they resemble actual leaf patterns.
Thoreau often makes use of scientific language to explain the creative process of nature: “(…) I am affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood in the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me, had come to where he was still at work sporting on this bank, and with excess of energy strewing his fresh designs about.” In this case he is comparing the work of the “Creator” of everything with that of a scientist, or artist, in his laboratory. Moreover, Thoreau implies that to observe natural processes is to observe the birth of the brand-new designs of the “Maker”. Nature is conceived as creative, perhaps the origin of the creative impulse. This particular excerpt of Walden can be seen as a poetic and investigative exploration of the leaf pattern as the blueprint for all living organisms and natural shapes: “The Maker of this earth but patented a leaf.” Interestingly the word “leaf” has a couple of different meanings, something Thoreau takes advantage of. The obvious leaf (of plants) is widely discussed, but at the very end of this passage the author references directly the readable leaf, as in page, with the expression “turn over a new leaf”, implying a new beginning. Thoreau equates the analysis and reading of nature’s leaves to Champollion’s study of the Rosetta stone, indicating that he thinks there is a poorly understood or unknown language to be deciphered within this original design which seems to be common to all elements of the earth, to all living beings. This can be seen as a call to others, to follow Thoreau’s own train of thought.
We may say that Thoreau engages in the use of language as an instrument of investigative engagement, a practice which will be described by Keler (Recomposing Ecopoetics, 2017), for instance, in her definition of ecopoetics. Long before such terms were in use Thoreau demonstrates a keen interest in a sort of investigative writing directly linked with the deconstruction of language to understand and think of natural and biological phenomena. The author seemingly tries to propose a glossary revolving around the word leaf, going to back to Greek idioms in order to make connections between similar terms. He evens proposes a phonetic explanation for the words leaf and globe (the former external, the latter internal), as if the sounds of each word are imbued with natural traits or characteristics of the different elements and organs they may describe. Thoreau uses poetic imagery to deepen the connections he creates. We can see rivers as leaves, leaves as blood vessels, or a hand as a “palm leaf”. The visual parallelisms and metaphors are accurate and create a strong link between the macro and the micro. Going beyond the leaf pattern, Thoreau tries to compare human facial features to natural designs (“The nose is a manifest congealed drop or stalactite”). I believe one main point he wants to make, is that humans are a part of nature, not apart from nature. Thoreau uses a poetic investigative language to support this point of view.
The chapter is titled "Spring," which immediately sets the thematic context of the text. Spring in traditionally associated with the transformation of nature, renewal, rebirth, growth, and abundance. The passage opens with a dynamic description of the changing landscape and a vivid image of a bank suddenly covered with “luxuriant foliage”. This burst of life or “sandy rupture” is the “produce of one spring day”. The inert bank transforms before the readers’ eyes, and a seemingly blank canvas turns into a work of art. Nature is described as an Artist at work, painting a landscape by arranging different shapes, colours and designs in a manner that creates unity. This artistic imagery emphasizes the idea that the natural world is a masterpiece in progress, constantly evolving and renewing itself.
ReplyDeleteThe main semantic fields that could be recognized in the passage are: VEGETATION; EARTH; WATER / ART (CREATION); TRANSFORMATION; ANATOMY.
The first three semantic fields could fall under our understanding of the category ‘nature’. Words that define the semantic field of vegetation are: (sand) foliage, foliaceous mass, vegetable leaf, lobe, branches, pulp, pulpy leaves, tree, fronds, water plants, lichen, palm leaf. The semantic field of ‘earth’ is defined by geological imagery such as: sand, bank, hillside, earth, soil, thawing clay, silicious matter, deposits, stalactite. And lastly the semantic field of ‘water’ is expressed with imagery such as: meandering channel, silverly stream, rivers, flow, streams.
The passage also contains rich imagery related to transformation. The theme of change and metamorphosis is represented by words such as: sandy rupture, sandy overflow, springing into existence, fluttering butterfly, thawing mass (clay), expand and flow out, spreading palm leaf, ice, crystal leaves, meandering channel, silvery stream. A close semantic field to the field of transformation is the semantic field of ‘art/creation’: Artist, fresh designs, laboratory, Maker, prototype, creation of an hour.
Another important semantic field is anatomy: vitals, animal body, moist thick lobe, liver, lungs, throat, blood vessels, ball of the finger, artery, bony system, fleshy fibre, cellular tissue, fingers, toes, hand, lobe, veins, ear, lip, nose, chin, cheeks, face, cheek bones. Thoreau employs metaphorical language throughout the passage to draw parallels between nature and human anatomy. For example, he compares the sand's transformation to the formation of blood vessels. Besides that, he poses the question “What is man but a mass of thawing clay?” and then proceeds to make the following analogies (hand = palm leaf, ear = lichen, lip = laps, nose = congealed drop or stalactite, chin = drop, cheeks = slide). In this way the author underscores the interconnectedness of all life forms, blurring the lines between the natural world and ourselves.
Thoreau employs rich descriptive language to vividly paint a picture of the natural world. He also uses some quite unusual and innovative collocations in his descriptions of the bank and its foliage. For example, in the collocation "sandy rupture" Thoreau combines "sandy" and "rupture" to describe the sudden emergence of foliage. This not so common collocation emphasizes the abruptness of the transformation and change that comes with spring. Another interesting collocation is "sandy overflow". It combines "sandy" and "overflow" to convey the idea that the sand is spilling over like a liquid, an imaginative way to describe the appearance of foliage.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of the "leaf" serves as a central symbol that encapsulates several key themes. Thoreau notes that the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, emphasizing the universality of this symbol. Leaves, whether in trees, rivers, or the human body, represent the vitality of existence. Moreover, Thoreau extends the metaphor of the leaf to various contexts, blurring the lines between human experience and the natural world (mentioned above). Additionally, leaves symbolize growth, transformation and diversity, mirroring the ever-changing nature of existence, as they start as buds and unfurl into an array of shapes and sizes. The fact that the entire tree is described as "but one leaf" reinforces the concept of unity in diversity. Thoreau suggests that all living things, despite their differences, are interconnected parts of a larger whole.
Thoreau is an exemplar of the ‘environmental imagination’ discussed by Lawrence Buell. The passage, as well as the whole book, exemplify some of Buell’s criteria for ecocentric texts. The first and most noticeable one is: interconnectedness of the natural world and humanity. The second one would be that “the human interest is not understood to be the only legitimate interest”. By describing the ‘life cycle’ of a lake Thoreau shift the focus to a perspective other than human. And the last ‘ingredient’ is: “sense of the environment as a process rather than as a constant or a given”. Thoreau portrays nature as dynamic, ever-changing, evolving and renewing itself. He also uses a lot of dynamic words such as: springing into existence, to flow (uses it 8 times), sandy overflow, branch into, stream, river.
The passage concludes by suggesting that the principles observed in this particular hillside are representative of broader natural operations, implying the cyclical nature of creation. In the end Thoreau invites the readers to try to decipher the hieroglyphics of nature, and to turn over a new leaf in our understanding of nature and our connection and relationship to it.
VERY LATE but better late than never, i guess! READING PROMPT Nº3
ReplyDeleteIn ‘Spring’, Thoreau expresses his delight in observing the phenomena of the thawing of the sand and clay, as winter bids goodbye and spring slowly pierces through its icy stillness. He takes a somewhat unconventional approach in witnessing the coming of spring, focusing first neither on fauna nor flora, but rather on the soil. Thawing clay and sand "of every degree of finesses and of various rich colors”—such as the flowers that bloom in this same season—adorn the scenery in enthusiastic bursts, “overflowing it where no sand was to be seen before” (p. 2126). He pays unprejudiced attention to the often-forgotten earth’s ceasing hibernation from its frozen burrows.
Following the trajectory of the flowing sands, flattened and deposited into the river bank, Thoreau stands and observes the working sun and mass of foliage. The apparent sudden springing into existence of said foliage conveys a quasi-sublime reaction, with his sensibilities affected by witnessing a process akin to the world’s creation in the book of Genesis; light, the sun, shining on stillness, followed by life, creation: “When I see on the one side the inert bank,—for the sun acts on one side first,—and on the other this luxuriant foliage, the creation of an hour, I am affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood in the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me […]” (p. 2127).
Thoreau then develops a imagery of simultaneous focus on the micro (atoms, grains of sand, blood vessels, the very minimal pairs of the words he plays with) and the macro (the trees, the globe, towns and cities) in a sort of pulsating shift of that same visual focus, similar to a heartbeat. Everything seems to come down to the structure of a leaf–”The Maker of this earth but patented a leaf” (p. 2128)–including, or rather, especially, the human being. Man consists of the elements of the earth. “What is a man but a mass of thawing clay?”; formless, pliable clay, given only form through the Artist’s hands, and given only life if light is to be seen and followed. Thoreau goes on to list the human body as an extension of the natural setting. From the same countless grains of sand that flow and adorn the river bank are composed the fingers and toes of man, settling at last at the “drop congealed”. Facial features come to be through an extremely visual process, with many curves and sharp edges, from a lobe to a stalactite, deep valleys and cavernous landscapes erode onto the face, which eventually returns to the leaf, always.
Although the process of creation seems to be “complete”, it ought to be reminded that clay needs but little water to become pliable again. The passages “[w]ho knows what the human body would expand and flow out to under a more genial heaven?” and “[w]hat Champollion will decipher this hieroglyphic for us, that we may turn over a new leaf at last?” (p. 2128), seem to imply that Thoreau believes–or at least hopes for–an open or less constrained approach, or perhaps vision, of the limitations of human nature. As the sand freezes again over the winter, the thawing process repeats itself, and as the leaves flourish and wither through the seasons, what sense would it make if human beings, sharing those same atoms, remain stagnant?*
*Now, I am going to be very honest, I am very unsure of why (I believe it is due to my own ignorance on the topic, or maybe my analysis is an extreme reach), but this is all the sense I could make of it.
Answering question number 1:
ReplyDeleteIn his essay "Walking", Thoureau writes the following: "English Literature, from the day of the minstrels to the Lake poets, - Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, included - breathes no quite fresh and, in this sense, wild strain. It is an essentially tame and civilized literature, reflecting Greece and Rome. Her wilderness is a greenwood, her wild man a Robin Wood. There is plenty of genial love of Nature, but not so much of Nature herself" (231, https://www.walden.org). Mais à frente no ensaio, Thoreau equipara ao Homem que anda nos bosques (e encontra aí a sua liberdade) a capacidade de gerar ideias que vão além da estagnação da sociedade humana, que se gere de hábitos e rotinas, ideias aladas e não de aves de capoeira (que vão além do definido pelos movimentos mecânicos da sociedade e da sua cultura). Parece, neste sentido, haver uma ligação para Thoreau entre o activamente estar e andar na natureza com a capacidade activa de pensar, de gerar pensamento, mas, essencialmente, de estar uno com a sua consciência. Thoreau, por outro lado, parece estar mais próximo, como exemplo de redefinição do cânone americano, de uma centralidade de um pensamento de alteridade sobre a Natureza, afirmando “Tão perto do bem está o que é selvagem!” ("Caminhando), em vez da beleza. Procura pensar na subjetividade como dentro de um todo Humano (em ensaios como "A Escravidão em Massachusetts") e dentro da Natureza como tal. Embora existam alguns problemas que surgem de Thoreau, acredito aborda fortemente o problema do romantismo e do pensamento imperial, não separando a subjetividade da Natureza como tal, considerando a relação humana com o sertão e não a sua idealização (que só pode ser preservada como tal distanciando o objeto, que se torna de posse)
Na frase de Lawrence Buell "literature's capacity for articulating the non-human environment" está subentendido o desenvolvimento do seu argumento para uma questão de linguagem, primeiro, e, depois, para um consideração da importância que os estudos de género e feministas tiveram para uma redefinição de uma percepção sobre o cânone, que não só exclui o feminino (ou o via através de olhos masculinos; e toda a tradição ocidental lírica parece ancorar-se nesta absorção do "outro" no seu discurso poético) como exclui a Natureza através do mesmo processo de romantização ou idealização. De facto, a Natureza é absorvida pelo "eu" nessa tradição. Associada à animalidade, aliás como a figura do feminino, a Natureza é tida como objecto de uma aprimoração espiritual a partir de uma posição de distância do sujeito em relação a ela, objecto natural que deve ser tornado belo ou produtivo.
Para Emerson, a Natureza é figura da total consciência do homem, ou, mais especificamente, do Aristocrata, a que essa consciência justifica a natural superioridade. A Natureza é o Conhecimento platónico, artificial, do próprio egoísmo subjectivo e de classe (ele separa os ricos dos pobres através de uma naturalização dessas hierarquias (e em que, para garantir a estabilidade dessa "sociedade" aristocrata naturalizada, os pobres são sacrificados a esse conhecimento), é o considerar da Natureza sempre como algo distante, além: "The pine tree, the river, the bank of flowers before him, does not seem to be Nature. Nature is still elsewhere (...) To the intelligent, nature converts itself into a vast promise" ("Nature", Read Books 2016, 155). Assim, o modo como Emerson pensa a Natureza separa o sujeito dela, torna-a objecto de exploração pois ela é objecto da consciência humana. Participa do problema que Buell explicita como sendo a separação entre o texto e o referente, dado que o referente é absorvido pela voz textual até se confundir com ele e a sua vontade individual.