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Thomas Hood 
Sophomore
Book Discussion Leader
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 260
Gender: 
Location: Wyse Fork, NC
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 Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 9:17 pm Post subject: Chapter 14. Former Inhabitants and Winter Visitors
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Summary
Former Inhabitants:
Cato Ingraham
Zilpha
Brister Freeman
the Stratton family
(John) Breed
the burning of Breed's hut
narcolepsy and fire department
the smoldering cellar
Wyman the potter
Hugh Quoil
cellar dents
a new Village of Walden
Winter Visitors:
winter isolation
paths through the snow
counting steps
continuity of walks
the barred owl
the woodchopper
a long-headed farmer
the poet
the Connecticut philosopher
the one other
the Visitor who never comes
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/walden/cha pter14.html
Walden Study Text |
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Saffron
Masters
Joined: 01 Apr 2008
Posts: 460
Gender: 
Location: Purcellville, VA
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| Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:21 pm Post subject: Poetry for prose
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DW, forgive my jumping ahead, but August is running out. Which reminds me, what is the book for September?
In several posts, DWill has alluded to the poetry in HDT's prose. I think Thoreau's paragraph describing his moving about in deep snow could easily be turned into a poem; in fact it begs.
Here are Thoreau's lines:
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| In the deepest snows, the path which I used from the highway to my house, about half a mile long, might have been represented by a meandering dotted line, with wide intervals between the dots. For a week of even weather I took exactly the same number of steps, and of the same length, coming and going, stepping deliberately and with the precision of a pair of dividers in my own deep tracks—to such routine the winter reduces us—yet often they were filled with heaven's own blue. But no weather interfered fatally with my walks, or rather my going abroad, for I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines; when the ice and snow causing their limbs to droop, and so sharpening their tops, had changed the pines into fir trees; wading to the tops of the highest hills when the show was nearly two feet deep on a level, and shaking down another snow-storm on my head at every step |
Poem version -- forgive my technique (this is off the top of my head) and my presumption.
In deepest snows,
the path I used from highway to house,
a meandering dotted line
intervals wide between the dots.
For a week of even weather
I took exactly the same number of steps,
and of the same length, coming and going,
stepping deliberately
and with the precision of a pair of dividers in my own deep track
to such routine the winter reduces us—
yet often they were filled with heaven's own blue.
But no weather interfered fatally with my walks,
or rather my going abroad,
for I frequently tramped eight or ten miles
through the deepest snow
to keep an appointment
with a beech tree, or a yellow birch,
or an old acquaintance among the pines;
when the ice and snow causing their limbs to droop,
and so sharpening their tops, had changed the pines into fir trees;
wading to the tops of the highest hills
when the show was nearly two feet deep on a level, and shaking down another snow-storm on my head at every step
Well, I'm not sure I did it justice, but I think you can get my point. |
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Saffron
Masters
Joined: 01 Apr 2008
Posts: 460
Gender:
Location: Purcellville, VA
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| Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:23 pm Post subject:
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This chapter has has Thoreau's description of what it means to be a poet. I think he got it just right.
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| The one who came from farthest to my lodge, through deepest snows and most dismal tempests, was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep. |
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DWill
Masters
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 481
Gender:
Location: Berryville, Virginia
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| Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:26 pm Post subject:
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Saffron,
There is what I would call poetry in many of his sentences, largely because they are so full of figurative language. It's interesting to speculate on what he would have thought of the idea that his prose could be presented as poetry. My suspicion--only that--is that for him poetry was a kind of gnomic utterance, with a bit of the quality of the spell, and in a slightly different, more elevated register than prose. The rhyming of traditional verse would have set it apart as well. This reminds me to look up his poetry. I'm not sure how much of it there is. Emerson said in the eulogy that Thoreau was not so fine a poet as a prose writer.
The poet you refer to in the 2nd post is William Ellery Channing, I think. He was supposedly regarded then as the finest transcendental poet (although Thoreau called his style "sublimo-slipshod"), but no one reads him now, and obviously the movement did not produce poets anywhere near the stature of the earlier English Romantics. I suppose that Emerson might now be thought of as the best transcendental poet.
DWill |
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Thomas Hood
Sophomore
Book Discussion Leader
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 260
Gender:
Location: Wyse Fork, NC
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| Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 4:17 pm Post subject: Re: Poetry for prose
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| Saffron wrote: |
Here are Thoreau's lines:
In the deepest snows, the path which I used from the highway to my house, about half a mile long, might have been represented by a meandering dotted line, with wide intervals between the dots. |
Isn't Thoreau making a dotted drawing for the reader to complete the dots and realize the meaning? This paragraph is replete with linear objects: barred owl, slits, pennisular, pines, etc. The owl's sensitivity in action makes it a representative of the transcendental person.
Tom |
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DWill
Masters
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 481
Gender:
Location: Berryville, Virginia
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| Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 9:30 am Post subject:
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Well, Tom, he is an artist, so I'm not surprised that you find this in him, whether we call it intention or not.
The chapter reminds me just a bit of "Spoon River Anthology," also of Frost's poem "Directive," describing the former village cultures.
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| Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape! Again, perhaps, Nature will try, with me for a first settler, and my house raised last spring to be the oldest in the hamlet. |
Interesting that he agrees that humans are capable of enhancing the beauty of the landscape, as most would agree we can do, ideally. He wonders what factors determined decisively that the former settlement would not survive, while nearby Concord would thrive. He doesn't sound much like a misanthrope here.
DWill |
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Thomas Hood
Sophomore
Book Discussion Leader
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 260
Gender:
Location: Wyse Fork, NC
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| Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 10:33 am Post subject:
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| DWill wrote: |
| Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape! Again, perhaps, Nature will try, with me for a first settler, and my house raised last spring to be the oldest in the hamlet. |
Will, yesterday a writer and retired judge whom I greatly admire referred me to this prefatory quote in his first book:
Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.
-- Virgil
"And Perhaps some time it will be pleasant to recall these things."
It's from the Aeneid, which Thoreau knew well. I just found that's it's the college motto of Yale.
http://www.yale.edu/td/about/motto.html
Tom |
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DWill
Masters
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 481
Gender:
Location: Berryville, Virginia
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| Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 8:51 pm Post subject:
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Tom,
You could expect him almost to be channeling some of these classic books that he'd read in the original language. Thanks for pointing out the similarity.
Will |
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