《瓦尔登湖》的生态意义_英语论文

The Ecological Significance of Walden

摘要

亨利·大卫·梭罗是19世纪美国最伟大的超验主义者、作家、哲学家、以及自然主义者之间。梭罗在《瓦尔登湖》中深刻阐述了他关于人与自然关系的思想，这引起了众多学者的兴趣。本文拟对《瓦尔登湖》中蕴含的生态意义进行历时的解读。首先，问世于18世纪50年代的《瓦尔登湖》引起了人们对自己生活的本能思考。其次，随着19世纪40年代工业革命的开展，《瓦尔登湖》中的生态思想对生态批评产生了巨大的启蒙意义，因此，大地伦理和深层生态学等数种成体系的理论建立起来。最后，从20世纪70年代到现在，《瓦尔登湖》为自然作家提供了一种体验生活的新方式和收集资源的新视角并促使了生态批评的继续发展。

关键词：梭罗；《瓦尔登湖》；自然；生态批评

Abstract

Henry David Thoreau is one of the greatest American transcendentalists, writers, philosophers and naturalists in the 19th century. Thoreau expresses the ideas on the relation between man and nature, which arouses many scholars’ academic interest. This thesis aims to testify the significance of Walden on American literature historically. Firstly, the advent of Walden in the 1850s evoked people’s instinct thinking on their life. Secondly, from the 1940s to the 1970s, Thoreau’s ecological ideology in Walden became the inspiration to eco-criticism, consequently several systematic theories came into being, such as Earth Ethics and Deep ecology. Lastly, from the 1970s to now, Walden provides natural writers with a new way of experiencing life and a new perspective of collecting resources and promotes the development of ecological criticism. 

Keywords: Thoreau; Walden; nature; eco-criticism

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. The Critique of Industrialization 3

3.1 Challenging human dominance over nature 3

3.2 Criticism of industrialization 4

4. Walden’s Inspiration to Eco-criticism 6

4.1 Land ethics 6

4.2 Deep ecology 7

5. The Ecological Implications in Walden 9

5.1 The implications on nature writing 9

5.2 The rising and development of eco-criticism 11

6. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 14