1) Analyse and comment on "the rhetoric" of morning, birth and awakening (note: like Emerson, Thoreau sometimes associates this concept with belatedness, and T. is especially fond of the pun morning / mourning)
2) Thoreau often uses parable, even if not all of them are biblical. Commen on the one that strikes you most, showing how effective it is in the discourse.
10 comments:
Society impels a man to run after the others to achieve goals that someone else set for him and making him ignore the “music which he hears” and forcing him to turn “his spring into summer”. Thoreau uses the artist who decided to make the perfect staff parable to show that time is irrelevant when perfection is possible and that a man loses nothing by living according to his own time.
In the parable the artist realized that “an imperfect work time is an ingredient” and he decided to do nothing else in his life. He knew that the work that he had chosen to do would take all of his life, but “proceeded instantly to the forest”. He didn’t waste any time, he started immediately because that was something that he wanted to do. During the immense time while “Brahma had awoke and slumbered” he worked all the time. Choosing his own path, the path is also easier.
During his work, “his friends gradually deserted him”, “they grew old (…) and died”, “the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin”, “the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end”, “Kalpa was no longer the pole-star”, he lost things, but what he lost was an illusion and insignificant when compared to what he had made: “a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions (…) in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places”. The result of his work was wonderful.
Following just himself, listening only to his drummer, making “no compromise with Time”, what he lost was just an illusion. He created perfection. If he had followed the others, the loss would be greater, it would be the loss of perfection.
Existe, em "Walden", uma noção circular do tempo e de todas as formas de vida:
"The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer." (pag.84, dir.)
"Sunday is the fit conclusion of an ill-spent week, and not the fresh and brave beginning of a new one," (pag.82, dir.)
Tal como a Natureza entra em decadência, ao longo do ano, do Verão para o Inverno, as semanas entram em decadência à medida que progridem, e os dias entram em decadência desde o fim da manhã até ao início da próxima, pois as manhãs (tal como o início das semanas, e a primavera e o verão) são a altura em que "some part of us awakens which slumbers all the rest of the day and night" (pag. 81, esq.). Transportando esta ciclicidade para uma maior escala temporal, e atentando ao texto, é possível afirmar-se que Thoreau exprime um sentimento nostálgico pelos tempos pré-industriais ("I dwelt nearer (...) to those eras in history which had most attracted me.", pag.80, dir.), em que a vida do Homem era mais simples ("Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!", pag.81, dir.), despida de elementos "modernos" supérfluos como os caminhos-de-ferro ("But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads?", pag.81, dir.), o correio ("I could easily do without the postoffice.", pag.82, esq.), e os jornais ("I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper.", pag.82, esq.) - podendo este sentimento ser também denominado "belatedness". Thoreau estima e contempla as manhãs como repetições, reduzidas e estilizadas, dos tempos em que o Homem vivia simples e lucidamente, estando em completa harmonia com a natureza e com o Criador - por outras palavras, a altura em que o homem estava "awakened" e portanto verdadeiramente vivo ("To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.", pag.81, esq.). Neste sentido, a manhã pode também ser um período de "mourning" por aquilo que o Homem perdeu.
No entanto, a manhã também surge como período de renovação: "the soul of a man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius tries again what noble life it can make." (pag.81, esq.). Este entendimento do período matinal é característico do transcendentalismo americano, tendo as suas raízes na rejeição puritana do passado e na busca de uma "New Jerusalem" (renovação a nível geográfico/estatal), e no princípio puritano da auto-examinação diária com vista ao eterno aperfeiçoamento da alma (renovação a nível pessoal).
1. The morning is the best part of the day, it is then when we have the whole day ahead of us, full with promises and new horizons. Thoreau says “The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour.” How many of us have gone to sleep trying to find a solution for some problem and woke up with the answer the next day? How many of us have insomnia and fear the night and feel reborn of energized when waking up? Even in nature it is possible to see the awakening and the power of the morning, flowers close up at night and bloom again every morning. “(…) and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less that the light.” The morning is the time where energy is at its fullest “All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning and in a morning atmosphere.” “To be awake is to be alive”. But this awakening is also seen as eye opening throughout the text: “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake (…)”. Following Thoreau’s ways of seeing life, men have to be more in nature, to be more natural “Still we live meanly, like ants;”
The concept of belatedness comes especially towards the way men are living “Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.” The need for everything to slow down and to live with less materials and less contact with others, with news of the world.
"If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.” (p.2112 or 81)
With this excerpt’s initial pun (“sleepers”) Thoreau begins to expose his thoughts on traveling and on the new “technology” of his time. As it is explained, sleepers are railroad ties - cross braces that support the rails on a railway track. With this pun Thoreau criticises the ones who live in a hurry, who are greedy and who waste their life.
For Thoreau (and Emerson) traveling wasn’t really that important. For Emerson e.g. Nature was a teacher, who “never wears a mean appearance” and that could be endlessly explored everywhere, therefore he said "Travel is a fool's paradise." (Self-Reliance). Thoreau too had a similar view and in this work’s first chapter he informed us that he too “[has] traveled a good deal in Concord."
Besides not really having to travel a great deal to enjoy sublime landscapes, the railroads present another problem too. He also used the abovementioned pun to allude to the mindless workers who at times died while building the railroad: “And when they run over a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary sleeper in the wrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop the cars, and make a hue and cry about it, as if this were an exception.” (p.2114 or 82).
The antimetabole and denotative paradox at the end of this excerpt (“We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.”) carries both a literal as well as a figurative meaning. The literal meaning is the one implicit in the quote above (it truly runs over people), while the figurative meaning is related to “technology” controlling man, robbing him of his time, of his pursuit of simplicity and of critical thought. These ideas are also depicted explicitly in a quote shortly presented before the one analysed here: “The nation itself, with all its so- called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial (…) the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.” (p.2112 or 81).
Inês Rodrigues
1)
“The morning (…) is the awakening hour” – 2112
In Walden, the narrator emphasizes the importance and the beauty of mornings and the awakening which they are associated with.
“Morning brings back the heroic ages.” – 2112.
Mornings remind the narrator of the “heroic ages”, and that is what makes him feel awake. It represents a period of renovation and implies rebirth. The narrator explains how the simple act of waking up early and bathe in lake Walden awakens and purifies him. He creates a connection between this act and the ritual of the baptism (“I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did.”), and what this action means to him on a spiritual level.
“All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere.” - 2112
The narrator reveals how significant mornings are for the creative process (“Poetry and Art, and the fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such hour. All poets and heroes (…) are the children of Aurora”) because this period – the same period that awakens the Man, not only for a new day, but also to a new opportunity to live and embrace said day – incites the intellectual endeavour. (“only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion”).
“Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me” – 2112
This quote illustrates that the effect of mornings on Man and their souls is not shaped by the actual morning down, but the awakening that is felt by said souls. This means that the initiative to seize the day must come from within the soul, so that people may “perform something” – they must create and do something for themselves – because “to be awake is to be alive”. The feeling of the dawn within us is what truly means to be alive. But that is something that must be learnt and practiced: “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake (…) by an infinite expectation of the dawn.” – 2112
KANSU EKİN TANCA
In these excerpts from "Walden", there are many references to morning as well as awakening and birth which are linked with each other. In his detailed representations of his own observations, Thoreau gradually develops the ideas of “morning” and “awakening”. For example, in the middle of the Chapter “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”, after he describes the wind, he focuses on the “morning” wind, thus he starts from a broader scene and reaches to a specific one staying in a particular time period, “morning.”
The sun stands for a reminder of the morning, and he constantly waits for the sun to appear. He, then deepens his ideas to clarify the importance of the morning. Since it comes from his own experiences, the reader is invited to imagine the view and follow the same paths with Thoreau. As the reader finds out that Thoreau also “gets up early” to feel the very first light of the sun; an intimacy between him and his readers is created.
Morning is praised by him in various different forms. First “the morning” is linked with “heroic ages.”(p.80). Then it is defined with the “awakening hour” (p.81). As the text continues, it is interesting to see how many different senses and representations that “the morning” embodies. Not only does he give examples from his own life, but he also talks about the intellectuals which he also relates to the morning phrase. “All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and emit the music at sunrise.” (p.81). After he clarifies the importance of morning, he then criticises the people who sleep too long to miss the beautiful morning time. Thus he comments “Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad?” His main approach to the morning suggests that, by realising the beauty of the morning, we now need to call our own "morning" since the time period for us to be creative and productive is the “awakening hour”, “the morning”.
In addition to these ideas of “the morning” and “the awakening”, an emphasis is given to the “birth” also. The reader can find references to “the birth” where he talks about what he calls “advantages”. “To enjoy these advantages” he wants to find some ‘young’ birches. These young birches represent the constant birth of nature in every spring. Throughout these chapters, with the help of imageries and detailed descriptions, the reader is invited to experience his own "awakening".
Spring is the most important season in nature. It is when everything reborns, when everything that died comes back, once again, to life. This special time is to Thoreau a warning, an image to Mankind. "We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty." (p.87)
Spring is this time to remember, marvel and immerse oneself in the present. It is such a major phenomenom that the thaw and the first spring sun are sow powerful as to forgive one's sins, an act only conceeded to God. The returning of birds, the dive of sands to the rivers, the migration of ducks and geese allow man to watch and take part in this fabulous spectacle. It is so great that nothing can compare to it: the jailor should open his doors, the judge should dismiss his case and preacher should let his congregation go.
Previously, Thoreau exclaims that to be awake is to be alive, so when the Dawn of Spring is set upon Nature, the only possible outcome is Good in the heart of every man. Spring is the reconcilliation of every single mortal being, just as the forgiving of sins is the reconcilliation of God and Men.
This parable allows the reader to rejoyce, if the advise/warning is taken, in Spring because both his sins, and everyone elses are forgiven due to Nature reborn, the past is dark, frozen and over, so it is winter. Therefore, if we are in Spring, why do we "loiter in winter", focusing about one and the other's past?
Thoreau, finally, encourages every men to look upon their neighbours and to forgive them due to them being also immersed and rejoycing in this first sun and Spring-like air.
Carolina Tavares
2)
Of many parables used by Thoreau in his essay, one that I found very striking, is the one on page 2128 (86). Thoreau speaks of a railroad bank that he observed: “Few phenomena gave me more delight than to observe the forms which thawing sand and clay”, the sand and clay take several different forms, and the author makes it look as if this dead matter turns into life: “in its effort to obey the law to which the most inert also yields, separates from the latter and forms for itself a meandering channel or artery within that”. This may be compared to the story of the creation of the world, by God. It also has a certain allusion to the Bible, not just because God created the world, but also, man himself, therefore man can be compared to a piece of clay moulded by God, so being ,Thoreau asks: “What is man but a mass of thawing clay? The ball of the human finger is but a drop congealed. The fingers and toes flow to their extent from the thawing mass of the body. Who knows what the human body would expand and flow out to under a more genial heaven?”.
There are many references to “morning”, “awakening” and “birth” present in Walden, particularly in the chapter “Where I lived, and What I lived for”, in which the morning is linked to creation and the divine - “The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere”. The Olympus, meaning that which is divine, is ever present and so is creation, which is brought by the morning winds everyday, everywhere.
The morning is seen by the author as a way of renewal, an awakening of the being, which encourages him to simplify his life (“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity”). It is in this awakening hour, when the most memorable and valuable creative and intellectual processes are born. Therefore, this awakening distinguishes men: it separates those who are awake just enough to live a functioning life, from those who are fully awake to live a life of intellect and poetry (a divine life) - “The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion and only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life”.
Thoreau’s wish is for men to not merely exist but to be alive. To be alive is to be awaken, in a sense of being aware of his own life and the world, and being capable “to affect the quality of the day”. In other words, the morning and its awakening allows men to live life to the fullest of its capacity and to “make his life, even in its details, worthy of contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour”.
Corrected version:
There are many references to “morning”, “awakening” and “birth” present in Walden, particularly in the chapter “Where I lived, and What I lived for”, in which the morning is linked to creation and the divine - “The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere”. The Olympus, meaning that which is divine, is ever present and so is creation, which is brought by the morning winds everyday, everywhere.
The morning is seen by the author as a way of renewal, an awakening of the being, which encourages him to simplify his life to a simpler, more genuine version. (“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity”).
It is in this awakening hour, when the most memorable and valuable creative and intellectual processes are born. Therefore, this awakening distinguishes men: it separates those who are awake just enough to live a functioning life, from those who are fully awake to live a life of intellect and poetry (a divine life) - “The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion and only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life”.
Thoreau’s wish is for men to not merely exist but to be alive. To be alive is to be awaken, in a sense of being aware of his own life and the world, and being capable “to affect the quality of the day”. In other words, the morning and its awakening allows men to live life to the fullest of its capacity and to “make his life, even in its details, worthy of contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour”.
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