《瓦尔登湖》的文体学分析

英语文体学结课论文

对梭罗的《瓦尔登湖》的文体学分析

班级：英语姓名：李晓璐学号：07-2班

310714010207

Abstract

This paper will introduce the background of Henry David Thoreau. His masterpiece Walden, or Life in the Woods is honored to be as Green Bible. The book embodies his philosophy and reflects his independent character. The paper will adopt stylistic analysis, which will be helpful for us to better understand the theme and aesthetic effect of the book and at the same time the stylistic analysis of the book also has strong social influence. At present, our Chinese modern construction comes to a new step, it has some similarities with America at the time of Henry David Thoreau, so how to keep balance between the economic growth and the natural protection is not the desire of citizens, but also the demands of harmonious society. So the analysis of the book can benefit us a lot.

Key Words: Thoreau H.D; Walden, or Life in the Woods; Stylistic Analysis

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 The significant Place of Henry David Thoreau in

American Literature

Henry David Thoreau, American writer, philosopher, and naturalist who believed in the importance of individualism. When he was young, he heard a speech of Ralph Waldo Emerson which was called The American Scholar and this speech was thought to be the guide for young Thoreau, it led him to the transcendentalism. He showed great interest in transcendentalism and oriental books which were full of mysterious philosophy. In a commercial, conservative, expedient society that was rapidly becoming urban and industrial, he upheld the right to self-culture, to an individual life shaped by inner principle. He demanded for all men the freedom to follow unique lifestyles, to make poems of their lives and living itself an art. In a restless, expanding society dedicated to practical action, he demonstrated the uses and values of leisure, contemplation, and a harmonious appreciation of and coexistence with nature. Because of his prolific talents in literature, he was honored to be as American environmental pioneer and mental master of philosophy.

Chapter 2 The Stylistic Analysis of

Walden, or Life in the Woods

2.1 A General Overview of the Book

Walden was published in 1854, seven years after Henry David Thoreau ended his stay in a small cabin near Walden Pond. In Walden, Thoreau condensed events of his twenty-six month sojourn into one year, for literary purposes. The eighteen chapters celebrate the unity of nature, humanity, and divinity-a central idea of transcendentalism-and portray Thoreau’s life at Walden Pond as an ideal model for enjoying that unity. Thoreau was very critical of modern civilization. He felt that man should seek truth directly by himself and not through imitation of others. This book does not attract the corresponding attention at that time: As time goes by, it becomes hotter and hotter. Walden, or Life in the Woods was honored one of the 25 masterpieces which shape people’s life; In 1985, it was bestowed one of 10 books which had the ability to construct American’s character.

2.2 Stylistic Analysis

Stylistic analysis of Walden, or Life in the Woods will be divided into four parts. They are

lexical level, grammatical level, figures and speech, cohesion and context.

2.21 Lexical Level

Geoffrey N. Leech and Michael H. Short in Style in Fiction (2001) have explain such theory that the words are the bases of a paragraph, a chapter, even a book. Special employment of special words can get special effect, for example, they can enhance the descriptions and protrude the theme. Thoreau is a special man, so his thoughts, such as his affection for nature and life, his independent style, his positive ideas, his innocent and naughty characteristics often appear in his book. Let us appreciate them one by one.

A. Employment of Adjectives

Example 1: “Bread I at first made of pure Indian meal and salt, genuine home cakes, which I baked before my fire out of doors on a shingle or the end of a stick of timber sawed off in building my house, but it was won’t to get smoked and to have a pine flavor” (2004:52). In the passage, he tries his best to make pure Indian meal and salt, genuine home cakes, there are two adjectives “pure” and “genuine”, which can fully make us imagine that “how does the writer do? Where does he do? What he would use?” and so a series of interesting questions which can largely enhance our appreciation.

Example 2: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not ,when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (2004:77). Let us pay special attention to the adjectives

“deliberately, essential”, from which we can see the hard life of Thoreau, though when he meets his difficult days, he does not give up. In our Chinese history, there are some people who would like to give up their money, their lands, even their lives in order to achieve their pursuits. Just as a Chinese man has once said that if a people wants to have a position in history, he must know what should be given up and what should be stuck to. Henry David Thoreau has a firm belief in transcendentalism, he think that the people can have direct connection with the nature, so in order to complete his belief, in order to experience the nature, he leaves noisy world for the hug of nature, so these sentences express his purist for the reality of life.

Example 3: “My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to a series of reading, than a university, and though I was beyond the range of the ordinary circulating library. I had more than ever come within the influence of those books which circulating round the world, whose sentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper” (2004:85). As we know, when Thoreau lives in Walden, he comes into his land which he expects a lot before. He likes his house, even it is only a hut, because as far as Henry David Thoreau concerned, this hut provides an ideal place for him to listen to the nature, When he puts himself in the nature, he finds that he comes into a huge library, the nature will tell people when to give seeds to land and how to work with the land in order to get a good harvest. The nature never advises people to copy because everyday for itself is fresh and everyone has the ability to achieve himself. I think this passage also reflects the bad habit of copying in American literature at that time. Though he has to suffer the poverty of life and “solitude” of spirit, though he only lives in a simple hut, but in the eyes of him, the life is “favorable” and he is absorbed in the reading of nature. This adjective exhibits a positive man. B. Employment of Verbs

According to Geoffrey N. Leech, Style in Fiction(2001), verbs have strong expression to show the state and atmosphere, the adoptions of definite verbs can make the descriptions more impressive. Of course, Thoreau is good at composition, he has good ability to handle the verbs.

Example 1: At the beginning of the book, he writes:” when I wrote the following papers, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present, I am a sojourner in civilized life again. I see young men, my town men, whose misfortune is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools, for these are more easily acquired than got rid of some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are some times, as it were, gasping for breath” (2004:21). From the sentences, we can see the words “wrote, lived, had built, earned”, which clearly show us two Thoreau: one is the present and the other is the past. The present Thoreau lives in a hut and he has to do everything by himself, but he is happy；The past Thoreau lives in city, he needs not to do everything by himself, but he is unhappy. So from the words we can see the independent and compassionate characteristics of him.

Example 2: “I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live, in imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I know their price. I walked over each farmer, tasted his wild apples,

discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price on it. I took every, but him to some extent, I trust, and withdraw when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on”(2004:69). In the sentences, “surveyed, tasted, discoursed” exhibit his affection for his residence strongly, when he goes into the nature, he finds all things belongs to him, the lands, the farms, the fruits, so these words deepen our understanding of Thoreau. C. Employment of Colloquial words

Because when the writer wrote the book, he lived in concord, a village, so it is apparent for us to see a lot of colloquial words, which make the language style fresh. Let us see some examples.

Example 1: “ When I return to my house I find that visitors have been there and left their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a name in pencil on a yellow want leaf or a chip”(2004:93).

Example 2: “ I planted about two acre sand a half of upland, and it was only about fifteen years since the land was cleared, and I myself had got out two or three cords of stumps, I did not give it any manure”(2004:138).

From the two examples, the colloquial words “ I, evergreen acre” make the description of the passage more rustic, from the whole book, the adoption of local language is very often and the style makes the features of the language fresher, more accessible.

2.2.2 Grammatical Level

This part is divided into two parts, which are employment of parallelism sentences and question sentences.

A. Employment of Parallelism Sentences and the Other

Geoffrey N. Leech and Michael H. Short have once said in Style in Fiction(2001) that some structures can exhibit strange effects. In the book, we can see a lot of parallelism sentences, which stress the tone a lot. Let us see some examples.

Example 1: “Some have asked what I got to eat. If I did not feel lonesome, if I was not, and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purpose, and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained”[2004:32]. In the paragraph, the parallelism sentence “ if I did not feel lonesome, if I was not, and the like” expresses the curiosity of the local people. Example 2: “I have traveled a good deal in concord, and everywhere in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable way. What I have heard of sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun, or hanging suspended shoulders until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass in to the stomach, or dwelling chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or one leg on the tops of pillars- even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness”[2004:56]. In the sentence, “and, or” are repeated several times, and from the parallelism sentences, as if we are so curious as well as the author because the anecdotes of the local people are so true, and the pattern causes a tense stress on us, when we hear these things, there is a little of scare besides the curiosity, and it also emphasizes the author’s affection for

the field.

B. Employment of Question Sentences

The adoption of question sentences can make us feel that we are with the author and the style can make us think about that why the author has such question? And correspondingly, this will be helpful to deepen our contemplations of the book..

Example 1: “Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should begin digging their graves”(2004:48). In the text, the author uses a series of questions, from which we can see his indignation over the inequality between the rich and the poor, he calls for people to live independently, we should not beg for food from our parents, so it has social influence and the pattern of question sentence impresses us a lot.

Example 2: “If we live in the 19th century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which it offers? Why should our life be in any respect the provincial? If we will read newspapers, why not skip the gossip of Boston and take the best newspaper in the world at once? Not be sucking the pap of neutral family paper, or browsing olive branches here in England. Let the reports of all the learned societies come to us, and we will see if they now anything. Why should we leave it to Harper and to select our reading? As the nobleman of cultivated taste surrounds himself with what ever conduces this culture genius learning wit book painting, music philosophical instruments, and the other things”(2004:94). From the passage, the author proposes a good question: the social property becomes more and more, but we do not get corresponding happiness and even our smile becomes less and less, we become to be particular about everything. The author adopts a series of question sentences, this adoption here likes a trumpet which beats our depth of heart. We are largely shocked by these questions and it makes us think about how to live in a good life.

2.2.3 Figures of Speech

This part is divided into two parts, which are employment of simile and metaphor,

onomatopoetic device.

A. Employment of Simile and Metaphor

According to Hu Zhuanglin (2007), the employment of simile and metaphor can

change the invisible into concrete. It will give us a direct feeling of the abstract and it makes the invisible into visible.

Example 1: “For the first week, whenever I looked out on the pond it impressed me

like a tarn high up on the side of a mountain, its far above the surface of other lakes, and as the sun, I saw it throwing off its smooth reflecting surface was revealed. While the mists, like ghosts, they were stealthily withdrawing in every direction on to the woods, as at the breaking up of some nocturnal conventicler”(2004:83). In the paragraph, he uses a series of similes and metaphors, for example, he compares the pond to a tarn, and he compares the mists to ghosts, the employment fully exhibits the beauty of the pond and the mists, which gives us a more vivid impression. B. Employment of Onomatopoetic Device

According to Hu Zhuanglin (2007), Semantics examines how meaning is encoded in

a language. It is not only concerned with meanings of words as lexical items, but also with levels of language below the word and above it, based on such theory, we can see that onomatopoetic words transmit special meanings.

Example 1: “They give me a new sense of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our common, oh-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-rn!” （2004:87）.When the writer describes the sound of the birds, he adopts “oh-o-o- bor-r-r-rn” to imitate the sounds of birds, which is very special and vivid.

2.2.4 Cohesion and Context

According to Hu Zhuanglin (2007), the role of conjunctions and numerals can make

the text more coherent, and they are just as a bridge which links the above and the follow. A, Employment of Conjunction

Example 1: “But while we are confined to books, though the most selected classic, and read only particular written languages, which are themselves but dialects and provincial”(2004:95). This sentence appears at the turn of chapter “Reading” and chapter “Sound”, and the conjunction “but, and” as well as “we are confined to books”, which gives us a coherent impression of the text. B, Employment of Numerals

Example 1: “ I had three chairs in my house, one for solitude, two for friendship, three

for society”(2004:120). Numerals “one, two, three” make the connection between the above and the follow more natural.

Chapter 3 Conclusion

Walden, or Life in the Woods is a masterpiece all over the world and everyone can share something from it. By analyzing it from stylistic analysis, we can appreciate it better. As we know, the rhythm of the society becomes faster and faster, so people feel more and more stressful. If the stress is too heavy to control, some tragedies may happen. So how to keep the harmony between the individual growth and the social growth is very important. Walden, or Life in the Woods, the book calls for people to live freely, just relax yourself, go to nature to find your happiness. I think this kind of life provides us with quietness and the space os thinking, so it can slow down the stress effectively. Another challenge for human being is the environmental pollution, we often hear people say that the river is not so clear, the sky is not so blue, the number of the tree is not so much, the air is not so fresh and so on, it is apparent for us to have a beautiful earth, but how to achieve the goal. I think the most important is to waken the awareness of the people, if everyone can share Walden, or Life in the Woods, if everyone can feel the beauty of nature in the book, I think they must feel unhappiness of the pollution of the nature, they must fell guilty of their deeds to the nature, and they will think how to keep a healthy earth, how to live a good life, I think this is what Henry David Thoreau has been expecting.

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