Into the wild book pages free#

He spent two years living in a self-built cabin on Walden Pond on land that belonged to Emerson. Not content to simply muse and write about the new way of thinking, Thoreau sought to live the Transcendental life to its fullest potential. He mostly preferred to remain behind the scenes, observing the action but not participating.

However, he only reluctantly adopted the role of figurehead. If the Transcendental Movement had a founding father, then he was most certainly Ralph Waldo Emerson. This newly enlightened, transcendent individual could go into the world and work to make it a better place. Transcendentalists differed somewhat from the Romantics in that they ultimately wanted to effect change, both personally and globally. Through imagination, the human mind could extend itself in ways that had never been considered. Specifically, the imagination was glorified as one of the defining, almost divine characteristics of consciousness. Another strongly Romantic concept that the Transcendentalists embraced was the renewed potency and potentiality of the individual. The very word “transcend” connotes moving beyond some stultifying condition of mind or body.

Into the wild book pages free#

Thus, Nature presents a way to free the mind of its typical distractions. In Transcendental philosophy, the grind of ordinary life and society are seen as barriers between the self and the spirit. Obviously, the predilection to turn to the natural world for intimations of truth was a recurrent theme for the Romantics. Many distinctly Romantic tropes echo through the pages of transcendental literature. As such, they professed skepticism of all established religions, believing that Divinity resided in the individual, and the mediation of a church was cumbersome to achieving enlightenment. The adherents to Transcendentalism believed that knowledge could be arrived at not just through the senses, but through intuition and contemplation of the internal spirit. Any list of particular characteristics of the literature of romanticism includes subjectivity and an emphasis on individualism spontaneity freedom from rules solitary life rather than life in society the beliefs that imagination is superior to reason and devotion to beauty love of and worship of nature and fascination with the past, especially the myths and mysticism of the middle ages.Īmerican poets: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman. Imagination, emotion, and freedom are certainly the focal points of romanticism. The German poet Friedrich Schlegel, who is given credit for first using the term romantic to describe literature, defined it as 'literature depicting emotional matter in an imaginative form.' This is as accurate a general definition as can be accomplished, although Victor Hugo's phrase 'liberalism in literature' is also apt. What miscalculations did you make and how did you avert disaster?Ī movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in revolt against the Neoclassicism of the previous centuries. Think about an experience you have had when you were alone and made some misjudgments that could have led to disaster but didn’t (it doesn’t have to be in the outdoors). What might you do? Why would you do it, and for how long could you see yourself doing that activity? Think about some alternative plans you might have to beginning college immediately after high school.

What are the benefits of any one of these activities? Think about your experience hiking, backpacking, and/or existing in the wild/nature. These dates are tentative and may change. Read chapter 9 &10 and complete Lit CircleĬhapters 17-18 and complete Lit Circle Role Passage Utilizing Imagery Page Sense that it appeals to (sight, smell, sound, touch, or taste).Directions: Use the following passages from the book to infer what character traits are revealed about Chris McCandless.Take notes based on others’ roles Connector / Commentator.Take notes based on others’ roles Character Analyzer.Take notes based on others’ roles Lit.Take notes based on others’ roles Theme/Motif Detective.Take notes based on others’ roles Figurative Language Finder.Your notes will be collected and graded.Leo Tolstoy- Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy.These dates are tentative and may change.Study for TEST ITW Test list mastery due.