This week, we continue the chapter, “Spring.” On page 164, Thoreau notes details of the winter “thaw” (did you look that word up?). On page 165, he makes an allusionto God, the “Artist,” or creator. In the same paragraph, he personifies the earth, and also makes a comparison to an “animal body” in an overlapping metaphor. Then he gets all sciency, almost a rap style meditation on terms such as lobe, radicals, mass, and liquid, a mash-up of physics, biology, botany, and poetry. The last sentence compares a tree to a river to towns and cities, and to insect eggs. This is what makes Thoreau such a challenge to read! Some of you have written that he jumps around, gets off point, goes from one thing to another. That is true, but at the same time not. Rather, Thoreau weaves impressions and observations together with various branches of knowledge and religion. He’s tripping, but on life.
This week, we are reading the chapter, “Winter Animals.” I really love how Thoreau is such a pacifist, preferring to observer animals rather than hunting and eating them. When you look up words, see how many synonyms you can find for the animals he sees.
This week, we are in the middle of the chapter, “House-Warming.” He uses a lot of old-fashioned terms to describe various locations in a house. Do you know what a “hearth,” “parlor” or a “dumb-waiter” (133)? You won’t be able to understand some of the wonderful metaphors he makes here unless you look them up! He compares a house to a “bird’s nest,” “cell,” and a “palace” all in one paragraph (133)! What would you compare your house to? Does that comparison help you to understand any of Thoreau’s?
On page 117, I noticed that Thoreau makes a point about vegatarinism. He seems grossed out by meat. Are any of you vegetarians? Vegans? What choices do you make about the food you eat? He continues to describe eating on page 18 and he has a lot of opinions!
This week’s reading starts in the middle of the chapter, “The Ponds.” On the top of page 101, Thoreau describes as a “well,” which is how people used to get their drinking water before houses came equipped with faucets. Even when the weather is warm, the pond is so deep that he’s able to get cold water to drink from it. To keep it cool, he puts it in his cellar. Remember, there was no refrigeration back then so the only way to keep your water cold was to find a cool place to keep it.
This week, we finish up the chapter “Visitors.” This one is interesting to me to read because right before I sat down to write this, I noticed my cat looking out the window. When I went to see what she was looking at, I saw about six or seven little birds hopping around on the walkway. I thought to myself that now that there are so few people on the street, the city animals are around more during the day. I don’t know why Thoreau greets his visitors with “Welcome, Englishmen! (85). Why do you think he does this?
As we read the chapter, “Solitude,” I can’t help but think this is an appropriate one to be reading during a pandemic lockdown. On page 72, the chapter opens with Thoreau walking around Walden Pond at the close of day. He’s paying attention, a concept we just wrote about for your second writing project for ENGL101. He hears the sounds of the different creatures that come out at night. You might want to open up a tab and search images.google.com for what some of these animals look like.
Page 60:
We are continuing to read the chapter, “Reading.” In the paragraph on the top of the page, he asks his Canadian friend “what is the best thing he can do in this world” and his friend answers, “to keep up and add to his English” (60). This got me thinking about how some of you speak English as a second language and that adding to your “English” may be something you do daily. Even if English is NOT your second language, aren’t we always acquiring new words and expressions? The first paragraph on page 48, Thoreau describes his unfinished cabin, and then goes off on an imaginative tangent, which I take to mean that his little home is his little piece of heaven on earth. I love the image in the next paragraph where he is the caged one while the birds of the wood are free. Notice how he names the birds he sees and hears. They are not “birds” in general, but very particular kinds of birds.
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Book Order InformationNotes for Reading Guides:1. The page numbers in these Reading Guides correspond to the page numbers in the book listed above. You can also order the book by clicking HERE Resources |