230579 American Eccentrics: Henry D. Thoreau and others (S) (SoSe 2009)

On July 4, 1845, Henry David Thoreau went into the woods around Walden Pond just outside of Concord, Massachusetts and began to live for the next two years in a log cabin he had built himself. He explained his purpose this way:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it….

This course will be centered around his account of this experience in Walden (available to read online at the link below). We will place his reflections in an historical and cultural context and see what meanings they may have for us.

Course work will include essays and presentations with a possibility to do Praxisstudien.

We will also take time to examine the poetry of another New England eccentric—Emily Dickinson—and explore what it may mean to be “eccentric” both then and now.

This course may be of special interest to those concerned with philosophy, nature study, and creative writing.

Please begin reading Walden during the semester break.

External comments page

http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html