Notes for "Where I Lived and What I Lived For"
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is also "sight"--welcome to the world of Thoreau's double entendres or
puns! This is more than just wordplay, however. Thoreau wants his readers
to "see through" the usual meanings of words and concepts, to redefine
them in ways which provoke rather than block thought. Here he is considering
ownership of land; is the true "owner" he who holds the deed or he who
appreciates it as landscape and especially as the
physical source of transcending (and universal) meanings? The poet faces
the farmer, challenging the reader the reconsider the true values of nature.
surveyed--Although
Thoreau made his living by surveying land in the Concord area, he probably
means both senses of the word here since he is also looking over the farm.
It is ironic that he made his living by determining boundary lines of property,
as he clearly does not believe that the primary values of nature can be
bounded.
husbandry: the art
of farming; the judicious use of resources, conservation, management
premises here means
the land, the clause of ownership in the deed, and the farmer's assumptions
about the world. This is a pun, but it is also much more, for all three
definitions are significant on various levels of meaning.
deed here is a legal
document but also an actual action and the man's "word" or promise. Such
talk is not cheap but "dear" in both senses.
took his word for his deed:
A pun based on both meanings of the word "deed."
cultivated it, and him
too to some extent: He is "cultivating" the "cultivator" by talking
about "cultivation"! Note that human interaction is an important part of
his "transaction" with the landscape.
He is "entitled,"
as land ownership is titled, but he is also titled by "seeing beyond the
false estates established by deeds and surveys to break us into our real
estate, which is all creation." (Martin Bickman)
whence each blasted tree
could be seen to the best advantage: a standard element in 19th
century landscape painting is the "blasted tree" in the corner which stands
out in contrast to the verdant greenery, water, and craggy mountains. (See
Hudson
River Valley artists.) Why does Thoreau make special reference to this?
A man is rich…:
This is an excellent example of Thoreau's use of paradox, a statement which
seems logically contradictory but does, on examination, contain a truth
beyond the contradiction. Paradox is a crucial aspect of both Thoreau's
style and his way of thinking about appearances and reality. He has experienced
what it might be like to live there (although the focus of "living" is
within himself, not in the place), with the advantages of a fresh eye and
an active imagination, but without the disadvantages of having to actually
take on the burdens of mortgage, taxes, farming, etc.
2 the refusal was
all I wanted : Why did he want
the refusal and not the property? Why would property have "burned his fingers"?
What is his attitude toward owning property, then? (and how would he redefine
"own"?)
I had been a rich man without any damage to
my poverty: How does this paradox make sense? What does Thoreau
mean by "rich" here?
I a monarch…: Thoreau frequently used
quotes like this (sometimes even quoting his own poetry), sometimes playing
with their original meaning to make his point. He does this here by marking
"survey" so the reader understands that it is a pun, as he has surveyed--in
both senses--this farm. This quote comes from the British poet William
Cowper, "Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk."
3
wild apples: Thoreau isn't interested in anything the farmer
has actually cultivated. He harvests much from his tasting of these wild
apples; he wrote a remarkable essay on "Wild Apples" in which he celebrates
this tangy fruit, especially those which have strayed from cultivated stock,
finding that they have a "certain volatile and ethereal quality, which
represents their highest value, and which cannot be vulgarized, or bought
and sold." The wild apple is a gift worthy of the gods, "and only the godlike
among men begin to taste its ambrosial qualities."
impounded: This suggests an interesting
theory of language--that words can manage and contain the reality they
are signs for. Thoreau often speaks of boundaries, and his desire to go
beyond them into wildness--yet still keep his experience, though it may
be a disturbing one, bounded and thus controlled by words.
4 improvements
: Which obviously he might not consider improvements at all, when
you consider what he finds most valuable about the farm. Thoreau often
places himself in opposition to the "typical farmer" who leads an ordered
but perhaps dull life, primarily because he has lost the ability to see
nature with fresh eyes and appreciate its wildness.
like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders
: According to Hesiod's account of creation, Zeus conquered the Titans,
the huge and monstrously strong early gods responsible for creating the
earth through their powers of earthquake, hurricane, and volcano, in a
war that almost destroyed the universe He punished them severely, sentencing
Atlas to bear the world forever, standing before the place wrapped in clouds
and darkness where Night and Day greet each other:
To bear on his back forever
The cruel strength of the crushing world
And the vault of the sky.
Upon his shoulders the great pillar
That holds apart the earth and heaven,
A load not easy to be borne.
[Edith Hamilton, Mythology, 63-6)
compensation: payment. Thoreau's humor
also often emerges in his side remarks as well as his juxtaposing myth
with down-to-earth questions and comments.
5 seeds:
The idea of seeds becomes important in Walden as he considers them both
literally and metaphorically (as seeds of thought). The chapter on "The
Bean-field" develops this metaphor at length. He did not go to Walden pond
to farm (though he did plant and sell--but not eat--beans) so much as to
cultivate the seeds of wild nature, turning them into words and ideas.
His final work, before he died at 44, was research and writing about "The
Dispersal of Seeds," now published as Faith in a Seed (Island Press,
1993).
live free and uncommitted: This is
not practical advice for most people, certainly not to the degree of Thoreau's
freedom. He was primarily committed to finding truth in nature and to his
literary art (though he had strong ties to his family and friends also);
few people would sacrifice as much as he did, and he understood that. He
was free to protest governmental immorality, and to go to jail for that
(see "Resistance to Civil Government"), as he did while he was at the pond.
He is asking his readers to reconsider their commitments--which are absolutely
necessary to their "life" and which are impediments.
6 Old
Cato, whose "De Re Rustica" is my "Cultivator" : In other
words, this Latin text on agriculture served him in the same way as the
farm magazines "Boston Cultivator" and "New England Cultivator" served
the farmers in Concord. Thoreau spent much time in the "athletic exercise"
of reading Latin and Greek texts that he loved in the original. Obviously
he's not interested in the most current technical advice on farming as
the more primitive connections to the land.
be buried in it first: Thoreau is fond
of exaggeration to make his points! In fact, he frequently jokes about
death. Yet as with all his humor, he is also "deadly serious" since his
awareness of the reality of death (his brother died suddenly and tragically
several years before) has sharpened his urgent search for the meaning of
life. For further exploration, consider Emerson's poem "Hamatreya" from
which these lines come:
Earth laughs in flowers to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.
7 experiment:
Note that he is describing his stay at the pond as an experiment, not as
a permanent change in life style! What theory is he testing with his experiment?
How does it fit what you know about experiments?
putting the experience of two years into one
: He structured the book by combining his experiences in those two
years and two months, as well as some experiences during the 7 years after
he left Walden, into much of one year, beginning July 4 and ending in the
spring. By doing this, he emphasizes the seasonal basis for his theme of
resurrection, coming to life after death, which is also reflected in his
metaphors on sleeping and waking.
As I have said: The book was prefaced
with "I do not propose to write an ode to dejection,
but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost,
if only to wake my neighbors up." As this chapter shows, he also wishes
to "wake" himself. He is spelling out his rhetorical--and very social--goal
for writing the book as well.
by accident: This was no "accident"
at all! Thoreau obviously relished the symbolism of the date.
certain house on a mountain: This may
have been a house in the Catskills which he visited in 1844 and described
in his Journal (II, 96-98). His humorous account points out the informal
rudeness of his host and the working men, dogs, and child who came and
went freely in the spacious rude house on the mountaintop. He concluded
that he could detect in his host "a gleam of true hospitality and ancient
civility--a beam or pure and even gentle humanity, from his bleared and
moist eyes, for the effect of the liquor had in some measure worked off--"
The morning wind forever blows, the poem of
creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Consider
this line carefully; it is crucial for understanding not only what "morning"
means but what the entire book is about.
Olympus, where the Greek gods that
succeeded the Titans lived, was first said to be a mountain top, perhaps
Greece's highest mountain, Mt. Olympus in Thessaly. But with the Iliad,
it became a mysterious region far above all the mountains. It is not, however,
heaven, although it was "an abode of perfect blessedness where the gods
lived, slept, "feasted on ambrosia and nectar and listened to Apollo's
lyre." As Homer said, no wind "shakes the untroubled peace of Olympus;
no rain ever falls there or snow; but the cloudless firmament stretches
around it on all sides and the white glory of sunshine is diffused upon
its walls." [Hamilton, 25]
8 a
boat : He built this boat himself and used it on excursions on rivers.
He describes it and a trip which he took with his (now dead) brother in
a book wrote while he was at the pond (A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
Rivers.). He sold it to Hawthorne who passed it on to their friend
Ellery Channing.
frame: His house is a frame, a crystallization
(which grows from the inside out), and a self-made cage, all of which are
relatively open and permeable boundaries which both "settle" him and let
him commune with the free birds.
9 about
a mile and a half south of the village of Concord: Note that
he was no hermit; he could and did walk to Concord village often and he
was only 20 miles from the major metropolis of Boston.
conventicle: an assembly or meeting;
assembling for secret religious worship; a meeting having a sinister or
evil purpose. Note the mystery and romantic mysticism of his description
of the landscape here, played against his more practical descriptions in
"Economy." However, as any person who lives by water can testify, this
is an accurate description of morning mists.
10 becomes
a lower heaven : Notice the repeated theme of heaven. In the chapter
on "The Ponds," he elaborates on the idea of how the water reflects both
earth and sky, and thus symbolizes the union of both--a union dear to his
heart.
earth is not continent but insular:
Why might this be a value? How is he readjusting the reader's perspective
(and his own) here?
coin in a basin: An interesting image!
Note that this is the second reference to coins in this paragraph. Is this
somehow connected to the complex idea of economy in the first chapter of
Walden?
11 pasture
enough for my imagination: suddenly this very local place
has become universal.
12 Both
place and time were changed: Here he moves from the description
of his physical location, seeing it in more symbolic and universal terms.
He is now in a very special site, a withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned,
part of the universe.
squatted: This is an interesting word
here, breaking the "celestial" tone of the passage. Thoreau was technically
a squatter, living on land which he did not own (Emerson did). Also squatting
means sitting (sedes....)
What should we think...: Thoreau often
asks rhetorical questions like this (questions that would ordinarily occur
to no-one but suddenly bristle with significance.)
13 "They"
is Confucius in The Great Learning, "Commentary of the Philosopher Tsang."
Homer's requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey
in the air, singing its own wrath and wanderings :Homer is the blind
Greek poet who lived at learned 1000 years AD and is credited with writing
the Iliad and the Odyssey (which had centuries of oral tales of Greek mythology
as their base). requiem: music memorializing the dead
a phrase used in the opening lines of both works
till forbidden:This phrase, abbreviated
"t f," is the printer's sign for a standing advertisement.
awakening hour: As usual, "awakening"
is being used on the literal level and on the metaphorical level, in terms
of the awakening of the spirit, not just of the body.
Genius : The idea--or rather ideal--of
Genius is a favorite one for Thoreau, as it was for all the Romantics.
Perhaps they would define it as that God-given faculty of insight which
cannot be willed and visits only a very select few. It is a faculty that
Thoreau always yearned for.
Memnon: The statue erected in ancient
times to Memnon, king of Ethiopia, made a melodious harplike sound every
morning when the first rays of the sun fell on it.
Morning is when I am awake and there is a
dawn in me : The style of this sentence is typical of some of his
most memorable sentences. Notice how he is completely redefining "morning"
in his own terms by setting up this structure of equivalency.
To be awake is to be alive.This is
another famous "equivalency" sentence. Obviously he is stretching the concept
of waking (which he began with chanticleer) far beyond the physical level!
How would you define that waking?
14
the dawn: What sort of meanings does "dawn" carry by this point?
To affect the quality of the day, that is
the highest of arts: Again, one of those "zinger" redefinitions.
paltry: something useless or inferior.
Isn't he suggesting that what may seem paltry, or ordinary for us, has
possibilities we should wake up to.
15 This paragraph
may be considered the very heart of Walden, especially for considering
what Thoreau was looking for there. Characteristically, it bristles with
metaphors for as often the case with Thoreau, what he wishes to convey
cannot be said directly.
marrow: vascular
connective tissue deep in the bone; the choicest part; the seat or source
of animal vigor or health.
Spartan-like: the Spartans were Greeks
famed for their military powress based on their simple, even ascetic lifestyle
(living "close to the bone," one might say).
put to rout: to cause disorderly and
precipitate retreat; to defeat decisively
swath: the path cut by the sweep of
a scythe, as in a field of grain or grass
mean: common, lacking distinction or
eminence; of little value; ignoble, base; stingy, closefisted
Notice the vigor of these verbs to show as well as say that he is
seeking the very essence of life by living in the midst of nature at Walden
pond.
hastily concluded: Thoreau's
emphasis (as are all the underlined words). Why does he say "hastily'?
Does this imply that it is a premature conclusion? (maybe the evidence
isn't in yet?)
glorify God and enjoy him forever :
The "Shorter Catechism" in the New England Primer begins with "Man's chief
End is to Glory God, and to Enjoy Him for ever." How do you think Thoreau
would re-interpret this idea?
16
like pygmies we fight with cranes : This image comes from the Iliad,
III, where it is applied to the Trojans. It certainly does make a picturesque
image!
clout: a patch of cloth or leather
on clothes; a blow, especially with the fist. Thoreau may well mean both.
He was probably drawing on a New England saying, "If we can get a garment
to cover without / Our other garments are clout upon clout."
founder: sink. Note the ship and navigation
imagery here
German Confederacy: Until 1871, when
it was unified, the German Confedracy was constantly changing its borders.
which, by the way, are all external and superficial:
Another parenthetical aside which undercuts the usual way of considering
something.
economy: This word has already been
greatly redefined in the first chapter as a thrift which revalues money,
placing time, as calculated in terms of living fully, as superior.
who will build railroads: In this context,
how important is it that railroads get built? Compare this with what he
says about railroads in "Sounds."
sleepers : Literally, these are the
ties upon which railroad tracks are laid. Obviously Thoreau is using it
metaphorically also, to speak of the men of whom he says earlier, "The
mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Note a contemporary meaning
also; a film which is a "sleeper" is one which becomes much more successful
than anyone anticipated.
a man :Very likely he is thinking here
of the men who actually laid the railroad ties, although he is also talking
about all ordinary men. I wonder what he thinks about women as "sleepers"?
riding on a rail :A pun; someone who
is run out of town is said to be "ridden on a rail."
to be ridden upon :Note how this extended pun has become a strong
metaphor which rouses human empathy for the laborers and all other "sleepers,"
as well as being woven into a basic opposition in the book between sleeping
and waking.
hue and cry: a loud noise, a complaint.
This was probably also a cliche (which had lost his original metaphorical
connection) in his time also.
17 Saint
Vitus' dance : A nervous disorder marked by involuntary movements
of the limbs.
parish bell-rope : In this time before
professional fire departments, a certain way of ringing the church bell
called people to come fight the fire.
we, be it known, did not set it on fire :
In 1844 Thoreau and a companion built a fire on Fairhaven Bay,near Walden
pond, to cook the fish they had caught, and accidentally caught the woods
on fire. After having the bell rung, Thoreau returned, but he could not
put out the flames. So he climbed a nearby hill to enjoy the spectacle,
thus enraging his fellow-townsmen. Some people in Concord still think of
Thoreau as "the man who set the woods on fire."
18 the
revolution of I649: This was when the Commonwealth under
Cromwell abolished the British monarchy and executed the king.
19
! "Kieou-pe-yu: This story comes from Confucian Analects, Book XIV.
for Sunday is the fit conclusion of an ill-spent
week, and not the fresh and brave beginning of a new one: In Genesis,
the Sabbath is the last day of the week, not the first, and Seventh-Day
Adventists were calling attention to this in Thoreau's time. However, Thoreau's
comment relates to his preference for beginnings. For more on the subject
of Sundays, see "Sunday" in his A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
Rivers.
Pause ! Avast! Why so seeming fast, but deadly
slow?" This sounds like the sermons of Father Taylor in Boston,
famed for his nautical allusions and the basis for Father Mapple in Melville's
Moby Dick. Yet it also suits Thoreau's paradoxical themes in this
chapter: most of us are in a big hurry to get no-where.
20 shams:
tricks that delude; cheap falseness, hypocrisy; fraudulent imitations or
counterfeits purporting to be genuine
more clearly than men: A popular idea
with romantics at the time, and best expressed in Wordsworth's "Intimations
of Immortality," is that the child has a superior understanding of the
universe which he loses as he matures.
a Hindoo book: This is also a favorite
fable for many writers, including Mark Twain who used the idea in The Prince
and the Pauper and Pudd'nhead Wilson.
Brahme: In early Hindu mythology,
Brahma is creator of the world and teacher of the gods.
Mill-dam: The shopping center of Concord.
God himself culminates in the present moment,
and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages, and we are
enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual
instilling and drenching of the reality which surrounds us: Whitman
and Emerson would definitely agree, especially that the "reality which
surrounds us" is nature, which corresponds to spirit.
apprehend: to come to know; recognize
the existence of meaning of; to sense emotionally; to anticipate especially
with anxiety, dread or fear; to view; to take possession of
21 be
thrown off the track: The train at the time were easily derailed.
break fast : Here is one of many examples
of Thoreau's sensitivity to language, especially words which have become
detached from their original meaning.
whirlpool called a dinner :Why should
dinner be a whirlpool? Is he playing this off against breakfast and his
call to awakening? or focusing one's efforts just to get a good dinner?
meridian: midday. Perhaps he is referring
to eating a large dinner at noon and being drowsy afterwards? Or spending
one's morning preparing for the midday dinner?
tied to the mast like Ulysses: In the
Odyssey, Ulysses had himself tied to the mast of the ship so that he might
hear the Sirens and not succomb to the fatal desire to go to them. He had
his sailors' ears filled with wax.
point d'appui, a point of support
Nilometer: According to Diodorus of
Sicility, "because of the anxiety occasioned by the rise of the river the
kings have constructed a Nilometer at Memphis, where those who are charged
with the administration of it accurately measure the rise and despatch
lmessages to the city."
cimeter: (scimitar) a saber having
a curved blade
22 I
cannot count one: Here he begins a series of riddles suggesting
his ignorance of the deepest realities.
I was not as wise as the day I was born.
Or as Wordsworth said in "Intimations of Immortality,"
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
(Stanza V)
cleaver: an ax-like tool used in butchering
to divide animal bodies into parts (not that cleave can mean both a great
division or a firm and loyal adherence or unity)
divining rod: A stick which, in the
right hands, will dip to show the presence of water or valuable substance
in the earth. Of coure, he is also looking for the "divine" in nature at
Walden.
mine: Note the pun here. Not only is
he using the metaphor of mining for truth/gold, but also that he is mining
his "self" for this treasure.