Thoreau's ecstatic witness / Alan D. Hodder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hodder, Alan D.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862--Religion.

Thoreau, Henry David.

Religion and literature--United States--History--19th century.

Religion and literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource (xix, 346 p.))

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

When Henry David Thoreau died in 1862, friends and admirers remembered him as an eccentric man whose outer life was continuously fed by deeper spiritual currents. But scholars have since focused almost exclusively on Thoreau's literary, political, and scientific contributions. This book offers the first in-depth study of Thoreau's religious thought and experience. In it Alan D. Hodder recovers the lost spiritual dimension of the writer's life, revealing a deeply religious man who, despite his rejection of organized religion, possessed a rich inner life, characterized by a sort of personal, experiential, nature-centered, and eclectic spirituality that finds wider expression in America today. At the heart of Thoreau's life were episodes of exhilaration in nature that he commonly referred to as his ecstasies. Hodder explores these representations of ecstasy throughout Thoreau's writings-from the riverside reflections of his first book through Walden and the later journals, when he conceived his journal writing as a spiritual discipline in itself and a kind of forum in which to cultivate experiences of contemplative non-attachment. In doing so, Hodder restores to our understanding the deeper spiritual dimension of Thoreau's life to which his writings everywhere bear witness.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface

Introduction: A Simple and Hidden Life

One. My Life Was Ecstasy

Two. A Clear and Ancient Harmony

Three. To Redeem This Wasted Time

Four. Born to Be a Pantheist

Five. The Artist of Kouroo

Six. To Speak Somewhere Without Bounds

Seven. A Meteorological Journal of the Mind

Afterword: One World at a Time

Notes

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [307]-336) and index.

ISBN:

9786611730529

9781281730527

1281730521

9780300129755

0300129750

OCLC:

1024008588