Walden Lake Freedom Sails

Thoreau is a writer living and active in the high time of American Renaissance and has been throwing significant light upon American culture. This influence has grown so large in the twentieth century that it has been gradually grown into a world wide cultural phenomenon. However, much space has been left for further consideration of Thoreau's studies. For instance, contemporary Thoreau criticism starts from literary eco-critical and environmental ethical perspectives while the conventional from nature and political ones, both of which belongs to exterior studies. In this sense, not much strength has been poured into internal studies of how literary thoughts are shaped. And seldom there is systematic consideration of his style poetics and the like. With the assistance of poetics, philosophy, culture, religion and history of thought which combine into a panoramic point of view, the present dissertation endeavours to describe Thoreau's ideology of freedom and the forms of his freedom poetics born by his complicated system of poetics. Meanwhile, the dissertation also purports to blow a fresher air and put new energy into Thoreau studies by a close reading and a metaphysical interpretation of his narratives, in order to break the rigid conventional research pattern and theoretical inertia. Thus the present study posits an important value not only in theory but in practice as well.Thoreau has been in the pursuit of freedom in life and spirit in his whole life time, which spreads from freedom in the wild and that in the moralistic society, and extending to freedom in religion. Finally his system of freedom has come into form and being. Thoreau first has been taken as a man of letters, for he expresses his ideas and opinions of freedom thought nothing else but literature, though his system of freedom is boundless, profound and vast. Unavoidably his poetics comes into the scope of criticism and research. The poetics of Thoreau comes from his own experience of his own individual. The life in his theoretical understanding is both free and able to carry out his missions and duties in his own free will. Therefore, we find, Thoreau's poetics also involves and includes various perspectives of nutrition in poetics. Put to detail one by one, they are an organic fusing and integration of the poetics of Romanticism, Surrealism and Transcendentalism.However, what Thoreau's freedom poetics especially differs is that his presents a distinctive poetical style against the wild, the moralistic society and the religious experience. Against the wild, Thoreau mostly represents in the guise of Romantic poetics, that is, to describe nature through magnificent imagination and colourful language, laying his stress upon the personal affection and instant feelings. Furthermore, the metaphoric senses and expressiveness of narrating are fulfilled by introducing symbolism and mythology. The seeding of poetical wisdom and the employment of mythological thinking all serve to Thoreau's inheritance and renewal of Romantic poetics.While in the face of the moralistic society, mostly Thoreau presents the poetics of realism which is able to consider and to master the life of moralistic society in a perspective of the whole, disclosing the essential elements hidden behind the moralistic phenomenon, faithfully reflecting the genuine state of social existence, cherishing his passionate earthly caring and spirit of humanitarianism and at the same time voicing for those in sad predicament and those marginalized.In front of religion Thoreau mainly appears as a transcendentalist which attaches great importance to the internal personal experience and self reflection of the individual and the reshaping of spirit, defying the authoritativeness and soleness of religion, stressing the subjectivity of human perception in religion, advocating the progress from individual religious piety to free will mythological imagination and ultimately to pure holiness. Thoreau's transcendentalist poetics illustrates a kind of skepticism of religion and final caring of the human kind, which is also a transcendence of Emerson's poetics.It must be clearly made aware that,in Thoreau's poetics, the freedom theory or also perhaps in the name of freedom ideology poses the mainstream of thought threading together and amalgamating Romantic, Realistic and Transcendentalist poetics, demonstrating the uniqueness and unsubstituability of this poetical property.Thoreau's freedom poetics is both a product of the Romantic age but also a result of his constant pursuit of truth, sincere consideration of freedom of life and mythology. It bears the taste and shade of powerful Utopian mythology. Its significance lies in the critique of reality and sets up a good example for the goal of human emancipation. Thoreau's poetic wisdom builds up an everlasting spiritual home for man and makes this "absurd" world a possible poetic lodging place.