Natural Waterscape: Streams And Oceans In American Nature Writing

Wilderness becomes a major theme and is repetitively portrayed in American nature writing.Nature writers focus on lakes,streams and oceans,depicting natural waterscape in combination of western pastoral tradition,transcendentalism and oriental culture.Such writings try to demonstrate the abundance of natural landscapes and the beauty of their musicality by describing nature' vitality and tranquility.These works are vital and essential in the literature of nature,which enrich the meaning of “wilderness" and add value to it.The forms and sounds in the world of water bring endless wisdom and consolation to people.Based on the three-dimensional landscape of nature writing(Landscape,Soundscape,and Soulscape),this thesis chooses classic writings of natural waterscape,using close reading and theories of Anglo-American New Criticism as well as emphasizing the landscape,soundscape and souls-scape so as to place individual life in a broader context.There are four major chapters in this thesis.The first chapter is a general introduction.The second one focalizes on the visual image of the water world,reflecting the aesthetic experience in sublime and varied landscapes.The third chapter studies the auditory effect of water and describes the natural flow.The last one examines the state of mind through interaction with water and reveals the ethical connotation that the water embodies as well as the moral choice of human beings.For instance,naturalists like Henry David Thoreau pursues a simple life at Walden;Ann Heymond Zwinger stays in Arizona to search for life and falls in love with the Colorado River in Grand Canyon;Annie Dillard prefers to embark on a spiritual journey at the Tinker Creek and appreciates the wonders of time and space in Virginia;and Henry Beston is fascinated by the birds in Cape Cod,Massachusetts and listens to the voice of the sea.The lakes are the jewels of the earth.The streams run to the oceans.Not only do they provide people with an aesthetic perspective,but also,they indicate that we should seek an accommodation with nature in modern society with a moral sense.