Walden: Narrative Tone

          Since I am presenting on Walden this week I decided to save the profundity for class and organize this blog around rather glib observations, specifically the narrative tone of the book. This was my second time reading the thing and my first time really thinking about what I was reading; whereas the first time I merely scanned over pages with the indifferent eye of a CSULA undergrad. My close reading, however, failed to change my original opinion of the work and especially my opinion of the narrator of Walden: a self-righteous, egotistical, overzealous penny-pinching fanatic with the charisma of a cold sore, who constantly moralizes and tactlessly shoves his extreme views down the reader's throat. 

          While reading Walden I couldn't shake the feeling of one being lectured at, condescendingly, by a puritanical know-it-all who would look down on me for wearing clothes unadorned with rips and patches. Also implicit in the narrator's tone was a sense of superiority and/or elitism, as if only the great prophet Thoreau knows what is best for mankind. And prophet is indeed what Thoreau takes himself for, evidenced by his regular use of biblical references as well as references from various other holy books and holy men. I found it to be a bit much; I wonder if it caused any eye-rolling in its own time, or if this style of narration was the norm for the 1850's. 

          Being a fan of Emerson's writing, I found myself comparing their two styles while reading Walden. Emerson, in my opinion, always comes across as approachable and charming; he doesn't make the reader feel stupid, lazy or ignorant--all feelings that Thoreau excels at instilling in his audience. Emerson comes across more like a father giving advice, patiently and good-naturedly, while Thoreau, with the coldness of a Victorian schoolmaster, pontificates and finger wags with his words. It's a wonder these two men were so close; I'm sure the charismatic Emerson had to do more than his share of damage control for this uncouth fellow-transcendentalist.  

John Muir's Environmentalism

          Having never heard of John Muir or his book My First Summer in the Sierras, I really didn't know what to expect. (The fact that it was published in 1911, in the United States, gave me somewhat of an indication as to what the style may be like, but as for the content I was without any preconceived notions.) I wasn't sure if it was fiction, autobiography, epic poem or anything else. As a matter of fact, my conception of "what the book was" or in what genre it properly belongs to changed more than a few times even after I began reading it; however I am now satisfied with the category I have come up with for Muir's book: philosophical travel literature slash nature porn. (Please don't waste your time looking for this genre/section in your local bookstore.)
           I say travel literature because the journal entry-style narrative follows Muir and Co. (a herd of "hoofed locusts" and their shepherds) on their way through California's most famous and grandiose wild regions; the action of the novel is a journey (traveling). I say philosophical because along with the facts, scientific name-droppings and observations of nature recorded by Muir during his trek, the reader is treated to his thoughts, opinions, musings and interpretations as well (which in my view constitutes the most interesting part of the work). And finally I say nature porn because the whole book is more or less an orgy of all that could be called wilderness: exhaustive cataloguing of every tree, shrub, rock, river, plant, bug, grass, animal, and even cloud, down to the most mind-boggling detail, such as the exact depth and circumference of the acorn of a particular acorn-bearing tree (which tree it was exactly is beyond the scope of this blog entry). The man had a serious green fetish; the leering excitement he feels when encountering some new shrub or other borders on inappropriate.
          Up to this point I have been (half) jokingly referring to Muir's relationship to nature as that of a lover to his beloved, and indeed in many ways it is, but his relationship to nature is also just as accurately characterized as that of a devout worshipper to his or her god. Words like "glorious, noble, sublime, and holy" are routinely used by Muir to describe trees, rivers, mountain ranges and the like. Those who go into the wilderness are entering a "temple," a temple wherein the "holy mountains" and the "psalms of the falls" will undoubtedly cause one to become "devout." This is all vocabulary of the sacred, and sacred is how Muir views the natural world; his environmentalism is a worship of the natural creation.  
   

The Prelude: Wordsworth and Solitude

          Being in a class wherein finding the answer to the question "What is Nature?" is the primary focus has significantly modified my reading strategies; I now mostly scan the assigned readings for eco-key words (such as nature, green, environment, etc.) and focus on those, as opposed to approaching the text with as few expectations as possible (as is my custom). Therefore I found myself doing just that when I began reading Wordsworth's The Prelude. That is to say, I sifted through lines and lines of verse in an active attempt to ferret out 1.) what the word "nature" means to Wordsworth, 2.) what is his philosophical viewpoint on the role nature plays in the greater scheme of things (e.g., is it a resource to be used, a deity to be worshipped, a thing to be put on a higher level of importance than man in some cosmological hierarchy, or ultimately a mere canvass for some grand painting of humanity) and what is the proper or ethical relation of human beings to this "natural" world.
          While I found that nature is indeed many things to Wordsworth--such as a "spirit of (wisdom) of the Universe," and a "Soul that art the eternity of thought"--one aspect of his conception of nature that stood out to me was its ability to afford solitude or shelter to one who would seek it. Specifically referring to the beginning of the piece up to around line 500, nature to Wordsworth is the anti-city, the place where others are not. Apparently for Wordsworth this solitude is a good thing: he fetishizes a "lonely scene more lonesome," and relishes the aloneness of the "gloomy hills" through which he walked "homeward ... in solitude." Nature in this way is a sort of escape, a retreat, a lonesome cottage in the woods where the poet can turn down the mental noise of everyday concerns and turn up the volume on profundity and philosophic clarity, hone his craft and in a sense contemplate the bigger picture. What is really being exalted here is the power of the mind and or imagination, and nature is simply the vehicle, or the ideal setting to unleash the mind's full poetic potential.    

Thoughts on Coleridge

     All throughout my undergrad career as an English major I had constantly heard bout The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; that specific title--and to me it was only a title of some literary work, verse or prose I knew not which--had been thrown around it seemed more than any other. (Or maybe the title just stuck in my head because it was so unique; either way I found [and still do find] that the poem is referenced quite frequently.) Therefore it was with great anticipation that I finally cracked open my anthology and began reading. Now, it must be said that I had no prior encounters with Coleridge and was not sure what to expect. (I was somewhat under the impression that his work would be more or less the same as Wordsworth's.) And, not wanting to corrupt my literary palette with the lesser works, I made the decision to look first at Rime of the Ancient Mariner (before reading the other assigned poems). After reading it in its entirety twice, with the glosses and all, and after looking at the rest of the pieces, I began to notice a number of things.
     I was first struck by the contrasts between the work of Coleridge and that of Wordsworth. In my opinion Wordsworth is much darker than Coleridge, more death-oriented and doom-worshipping. Maybe Wordsworth just posesses a Buddhist-like way of viewing death with detachment, but the fact remains that death and decline are typical Wordsworthian themes. Now, Coleridge meditates on death as well, but in a way that at some point offers redemption. (For example the Ancient Mariner is blessed by the hermit; in another instance the narrator confined to the lime tree bower comes to see beauty in his arboreal "prison.") I find Coleridge to be more of a poet of (grim) positivity, and Wordsworth a poet of despair, in a sense. In wondering why Coleridge leans more towards the "light," so to speak, I came to formulate another opinion of the poet and his works.
     Coleridge seems to be much more in tune with (judeo-christian) religion than is Wordsworth, who could be described as almost pagan in his "green" spirituality, if you will. The over-all themes of redemption that kept appearing in Colderidge's work, along with some very thinly-veiled allusions to the death and resurection of Christ, gave me pause at times, and had me checking his biographical stats online to see if he was educated to be some sort of clergyman prior to his career as poet. The most obvious instance of this is the symbol of the albatross, who selflessly assists the sailors out of their arctic death-trap and into calmer waters. The ancient Mariner kills said albatross out of nothing but human perversity, much like man killed Christ who loved him. I found no paralell to this in the assigned Wordsworth poems.    
    

For this week's blog posting I chose to focus on Evelyn Fox Keller's article, "Gender and Science: Origin, History, and Politics." At first read I had the impulse to scoff--what with all the talk of the "autonomy of the egg cell as an active participant in the process of human conception" and such (as opposed to some fluid-filled organic orb that passively floats from one place to the next, waiting to be unceremoniously "assaulted" by the insensitive sperm cell); but then I opened my mind a bit (a rare occurrence, to be sure)and realized that, while I feel it is a bit over the top to take the gender wars to the level of scientific terminology, a valid point is still being made. Historically, phenomena in science that exhibit strength, assertiveness, power, or dominance in any way have been characterized as male. Likewise all that is weak, passive and assault-able, if you will, is deemed feminine. Sometimes these designations are accurately assigned, but at times they are not. Keller feels that these are sociocultural constructs that have been presented as "the natural order of things" and have existed as such for so long that many take them for fact. Some may argue that her time is better spent on more crucial concerns like the real oppression of women in various volatile parts of the world instead of nit-picking at whether or not female reproductive cells are portrayed as having agency, but I would say to them words have power. Keller believes there is an ideology behind these patriarchal-flavored terms, and this ideology is attempting to present itself as the "natural" order by way of scientific legitimacy. This made me think about our class, in a way, because the way I see it, one of our major aims in this course is to define a term: nature. We are going to attempt to dissect and examine all the ways the term has been used and what that term means to us today. Keller's article was a helpful primer for me to get into that frame of mind.