Confucianism And Taoism In Thoreau's Walden

Thoreau's reputation is unique in American history of literature. In his day, he was generally conceived as an insignificant writer and in our day he is universally recognized as the most prestigious writer. Ignored at first, he gradually gained his recognition in a serious advances based on various appeals-as a nature writer, an economist, an advocate of simple life, an anarchist and an environmentalist. His Walden has been rated as the most influential book on American character by American Heritage Magazine.For Chinese readers, what has always fascinated them is the elements of traditional Chinese philosophy in Walden. Thoreau cited ten quotations from Confucian Four Books, which undoubtedly reflects his admiration for Confucius. Earlier than his creation of Walden, Thoreau twice selected Confucian quotations and published them on Dial, which is the main academic journal of transcendentalism. Furthermore, though Thoreau had never mentioned Taoism in this book or other works, readers of Walden naturally find there is an obvious analogy between the insights of Walden and Chinese Taosim. As Lin yutang put it,"Thoreau is the most Chinese of all American authors in his entire view of life,"and that he could "translate passages of Thoreau into Chinese and pass them off as original writing by a Chinese poet without raising any suspicion."Specifically he notes that Thoreau was like Zhuangzi in his ruggedness and hardness and his individualistic impatience.This dissertation can be divided into three chapters. The preface serves as a introduction to Thoreau research home and abroad. Chapter 1 analyzes the quotations of Four books published on Dial and the possibility of his encountering Taoism. Chapter 2 explores further into the ten quotations in the book of Walden. The chapter on one hand reveals the similarity between Walden and the Confucian spirit of self improvement, and on the other hand, through the detailed analysis of each quotation, the misreading of the original Confucian texts. Based on the comparison between transcendentalism and Taosim, Chapter 3 deals with the analogy between Walden and Taosim. One can easily see the spiritual parallelism from the solutions proposed by Thoreau and Taoists in resolving the dilemma of humanity. The last part is conclusion, which is a summary of different presentation of Confucianism and Taoism in Walden.The quotations from Confucian classics in Walden and Dial demonstrates the affinity between Thoreau's mind and Confucian literature, which mains rests on the interconnecting two points of simplicity and self–perfection. Simplicity means lowing the material needs, which promotes the self-improvements in terms moral purification. Thoreau's solitary life by Walden can be seen as an experiment Confucian self-cultivation. But we can not deny that fact the some of the Thoreau's understanding of Confucian texts is rather creative, or we can say he imposed his innovative insights into them, which divert the original focus of connotation.As pointed out in our analysis on the quotations, Thoreau quite often sees them in his own creative way, and apply then to reinforce his own individualistic insights. Nor does he have the interests or intention to study Confucianism in a systematic way, so the more important part of Confucian ethics on social bonds and morality is ignored, including the concept of benevolence and ritual. For Confucian school, man are society centered, while Thoreau is so artistic and individualistic to adopt it.On the contrary, though Thoreau never mentioned Taoism in any of his works, readers are often stuck by the similarity of Walden and Taoism. The deep affinity is based on some common philosophical views of transcendentalism and Taosim. First, both over-soul of transcendentalism and Tao are of higher and universal dominance. Second, in both transcendentalism and Taoism traditions, the universal truth is perceived not so much through reason and experience as intuition and instinct. At last, nature plays a fundamental role in enhancing spiritual enlightenment in both schools.Faced with the alienation caused by material progress, Thoreau and Taoists argue that humanity must put an end to their blind material pursuit, and one can see the similarities between the solutions proposed by them to solve the dilemma. First, Taoists and Thoreau propose that man lead a life of simplicity by lowing their material needs. In their eyes, infants represent the ideal character of innocence and purity. Second, in terms of exploring the real life, both Thoreau and Zhangzi attach great importance on listening to inner voice and following one's nature. In Thoreau's words, man should"hear different drum", while Zhuangzi put it as"preserving one's nature". The essence of their argument is that man should not restricted by social conventions, and only when we liberate our heart and follow the steps out our own nature, the value and dignity of humanity can be respected put into the place where it rightly belong. At last, both Taoism and Thoreau seek to regain the harmonious relationship between man and nature, thus enabling us to purifying soul and upgrading spirituality. Thoreau's life is can be seen as an experiment of solitude in nature, which is akin to Taoist philosophy of Harmony of Man ad Nature.Above all, the similarity between the Confucianism and Walden spirit rests on the points of simplicity and self–perfection. Obviously, the Confucian quotations in Walden binds them in a particular way, but on a higher level, the deep spiritual affinity is limited, which, on the contrary, actually is rooted in Walden and Taoism.