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Arnold’s early poems
Matthew Arnold 1840-1849 (A man of intellect and of spiritual sensitivity contemplates the purpose of life and its struggles.) “Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead,/ Oblivion’s dreary fountain, where art thou”. What a dark way to begin one’s poetical efforts, at 18 years of age! And we need read no further to suspect (correctly) that in Matthew […]
“On Taste”
Edmund Burke 1759 (What does it really mean for an opinion to be “a matter of taste”?) When we say “it’s just a matter of taste”, a bold and negative message lies behind the word “just”. Whether intended or not, the word creates a whiff of denigration. We discredit the thing we’re describing, reducing it […]
Passages from the American Notebooks
Nathaniel Hawthorne 1835-1853 (The exercise of a young author’s pen creates images of the New England landscape and its people.) Mrs. Sophia Hawthorne, after the death of her husband in 1864, respected his wish that no biography be written of him. However, in lieu of this, she released to an eager public three successive volleys […]
Walden
Henry David Thoreau 1854 (A philosopher and naturalist returns from the woods to deliver a message: Wake Up! Think! Live Meaningfully!) The account of Thoreau’s temporary retreat from civilization and the philosophy he developed and tested during that time, is perhaps the greatest single work in American literature. I say this not so much because […]
A Sand County Almanac
July 9, 2014 / 3 Comments on A Sand County Almanac
Aldo Leopold 1948 (An ecologist contemplates and celebrates the land, and recommends an expansion of our moral world.) In today’s courses on ecology, forestry, conservation, environmental philosophy or land use, three personalities are routinely introduced as the fathers of modern concern for nature, the three who first and most strongly urged us to enlarge our […]
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