Tag Archives: wilderness

A Connection Between Robert Frost and Henry Thoreau

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For the blog this week I am going to further a point I raised in class about the Woodchuck  found in the opening paragraph of the chapter Higher Laws. The Drumlin Woodchuck by Robert Frost calls attention to a Woodchuck as well. The Drumlin Woodchuck is a poem associated with nature, wilderness, and retreating from the influence of man. According to an article by Fritz Oehlschlaeger titled Two Woodchucks, or Frost and Thoreau on the Art of the Burrow the; “admiration for Walden(by Frost) is well known, and numerous critics have suggested both general and specific parallels between the works of Thoreau and Frost.” While this admiration adds a layer of depth when reading Frosts poems as they can be connected to the ideas of Thoreau, it is interesting to look at the poem A Drumlin Woodchuck as an explicit nod to the Walden, where the Frosts poem can be seen as a response. Oehlschlaeger claims to have discovered this original relationship between these “two woodchucks”, and suggests that Frost uses the name Thoreau through a pun; “so instinctively thorough”(line  31). The usage here is claimed to be a pun By Oehlschlaeger, and this analogy seems apt.

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Faith and Nature

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In Mary Rowlandson’s book, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, she recounts the transformations she must go through, once natives take her captive. The Second Remove describes her struggles to survive in the “vast and desolate wilderness.” Rowlandson describes how she was exhausted and missed her home and that the Spirit of God was the only thing that kept her going. Rowlandson states, “God was with me in a wonderful manner, carrying me along, and bearing up my spirit, that it did not quite fail” (312). Rowlandson was showing her faith towards God and displays that He was the only thing keeping her from giving up. She describes the wilderness as a very barren place that is exceptionally inhospitable compared to her society. Continue reading →

Nature’s Influence on Man

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American colonists arriving in these shores brought with them ideas of individual liberty and the natural right of property. If you worked hard and put in the time, the thinking goes, you were entitled to the fruits of your own labor. Crevecoeur sketches a convincing tableau that incorporates these philosophies into 18th century life in the New World. Instead of being given dominion over untamed land, the early settlers had to work to push back the woods and make the soil productive. At the same time, however, they were influenced by their surroundings to the point that even man’s basic humanity was at risk. Unlike the earlier Rowlandson, who writes of her stoic stand against wilderness that is enabled by the grace of God, Crevecoeur’s letters suggest that man’s interaction with nature works both ways.

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Advertising and the environment: videos from class

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If you are interested in taking another look, here are the videos we watched in class on Thursday.  Stories, metaphors, and images of the environment often come to seem deceptively transparent  through long usage.  It is our job as literary and cultural analysts to uncover how they are working and to make them strange again.  And if you watch these commercials enough times they definitely start to seem really strange.  Kids dressed up as trees and flowers blowing in the wind.  Making garbage disappear simply by holding a beautiful poster in front of it.  A car that transforms into animals in order to navigate a rugged landscape.  Weird stuff!   Environmental and literary tropes — like the sublime, the pastoral, harmony or the ecological web, and wilderness (see the Buell glossary of terms for explanations of these) — are everywhere; you just have to keep your eyes open for them.  Where do you see them in your day to day lives?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHZRJpeOe8w

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