WaldenWalden
Volatile Truths
Title rated 0 out of 5 stars, based on 0 ratings(0 ratings)
Book, 1992
Current format, Book, 1992, , No Longer Available.Book, 1992
Current format, Book, 1992, , No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formatsHenry David Thoreau's Walden (1854) is more than a book; it has become an American cultural icon, an archetypal portrait of a person finding peace and truth alone in the woods. Yet the book itself is more complex and rewarding than its image. Composed over a period of nine years, it asks to be read as deliberately as it was written. Its truths are volatile, not to be etched in stone or printed on bumper stickers but to be encountered in the reader's consciousness in a dynamic play of mind.
Walden: Volatile Truths, then, tries to respect Thoreau's playful elusiveness and shifting turns of thought. It provides not so much a single interpretation as a series of contexts--historical, structural, linguistic, mythological, and philosophical--from which Walden can be profitably considered but no one of which is definitive. By focusing on close analyses of key passages, Martin Bickman involves the reader in the active making of meaning. Bickman's own writing is clear and accessible, although many of his insights will be new even for scholars in the field. He takes a fresh look at the critical controversies and places Walden in the current revival of interest in American pragmatism.
Chronicles the life and work of Thoreau, and provides a bibliography of works by and about him
Walden: Volatile Truths, then, tries to respect Thoreau's playful elusiveness and shifting turns of thought. It provides not so much a single interpretation as a series of contexts--historical, structural, linguistic, mythological, and philosophical--from which Walden can be profitably considered but no one of which is definitive. By focusing on close analyses of key passages, Martin Bickman involves the reader in the active making of meaning. Bickman's own writing is clear and accessible, although many of his insights will be new even for scholars in the field. He takes a fresh look at the critical controversies and places Walden in the current revival of interest in American pragmatism.
Chronicles the life and work of Thoreau, and provides a bibliography of works by and about him
Title availability
About
Subject and genre
Details
Publication
- New York : Twayne ; Toronto : Maxwell Macmillan Canada ; New York : Maxwell Macmillan International, c1992.
Opinion
More from the community
Community lists featuring this title
There are no community lists featuring this title
Community contributions
There are no quotations from this title
There are no quotations from this title
From the community