“Thoreau's quotations from the Confucian books in Walden” (Publication, 1961)
Year
1961
Text
Cady, Lyman V. Thoreau's quotations from the Confucian books in Walden. In : American literature ; vol. 33, no 1 (March 1961). (THD11)
Type
Publication
Mentioned People (1)
Thoreau, Henry David
(Concord, Mass. 1817-1862 Concord, Mass.) : Schriftsteller, Philosoph, Dichter
Subjects
Literature : Occident : United States of America
Chronology Entries (2)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1838.1-2012 |
Henry David Thoreau und China : allgemein Quellen : Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. L'invariable milieu, ouvrage morale Tséu-ssê, en chinois et en manchou [ID D1943]. Huc, Evariste Régis. Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet et la Chine pendant les années 1844, 1845 et 1846 [ID D2107]. Iu-kiao-li, ou, Les deux cousines : roman chinois. Trad by Abel-Rémusat. [ID D5232]. The Chinese classical work commonly called the Four books. Transl. by David Collie. [ID D22647]. Marshman, Joshua. The works of Confucius [ID D1909]. Pauthier, [Jean-Pierre] Guillaume. Les livres sacrés de l'Orient [ID D2040]. Les quatre livres de philosophie morale et politique de la Chine. Trad. du Chinois par G. Pauthier. [ID D2116]. Pfeiffer, Ida. A lday's voyage round the world [ID D2109]. Lao-tseu. Le Tao-te-king. Trad. par G. Pauthier. [Eventuelle Quelle]. Sekundärliteratur 1932 Arthur Christy : Thoreau read the Confucian books, probably just as much as Ralph Waldo Emerson, but he used them in his own way. His individuality and the eccentricity which baffled the practical Concord villagers was probably never illustrated to better advantage than in the selections from the Chinese books which he chose to quote. Thoreau seems never to have divorced his interest in nature from his reading of any scripture. His Confucian reading, considered alone, emphatically suggests this. He never tried to read mystical divinity into the Chinese ; he quoted them in connection with flora and fauna. 1972 Ch'en David T.Y. : To the student of Thoreau who is familiar with Chinese culture, Walden is similar to a traditional Chinese government, Confucian in form and Taoist in spirit, for the book is full of quotations from the Confucian books, while its ideas are essentially Taoist. 1984 Yao-hsin Chang : It was intensified by Thoreau's reading of Greek and European authors and the Hindoo philosophy, which exerted a good deal of influence on his thinking. What Confucius and Confucian classics had to capture his interest relates also chiefly to the perfection of men through self-development. Thoreau was of the opinion that the culture of the mind conduces to the happiness of the individual. He believed that all reform must come from within, and that when each individual referms himself, then the reformation of society will automatically follow. This essentially transcendental stance touched the quintessential Confucianism tangentially. 1988 Chen Chang-fang : For Thoreau, the Confucian canon, though gilded by the patina of antiquity, still preserves immutable wisdom, a wisdom that captivated him all his life. In addition, Thoreau seems to imply that he is attracted by the practical way of morality as subtly inculcated in the Confucian teachings. 2004 Cheng Aimin : Thoreau's contact with nature fascinates present-day urban reader in China as it does in the West. Many Chinese critics expressed their ideas about Thoreau's contact with nature and life at Walden. Since the 1990s Chinese scholars and critics begun to study Thoreau's ecological ideas. The Chinese concept of nature in Walden lead the Chinese to reevaluate his contribution to an American philosophy of nature. 2009 Ma Junhong : Henry David Thoreau, who was ignored and dismissed by his contemporaries, now has become a global figure as the saint and pioneer of environmental protection. Thoreau inquired into the rationality of science and technology, recognized the exploitation of life under the guidance of rationality and objected to the material culture in which people's lives were eroded and degraded. He tried to find an ideal solution to the crises of natural ecology and spiritual ecology of human beings. China could derive some enlightenment from Thoreau's life philosophy. First, it stimulates us to rediscover and reinterpret the Chinese classics, which have been ignored I the past 100 years, and to find our own eco-wisdom. Second, it forces us to reflect on the development of China's modernization. In Thoreau's opinion, a true life should be full of vivacity, growth and vitality. It involves perception of life, natural growth of the organism and active creation of living things and everlasting vigor and fertility of the world. Nature's exuberancy aroused Thoreau's life consciousness. Therefore, he sought to gain it through life experience in nature. He not only showed his love and concern for nature, but also showed his great solicitude for the human being. China has also encountered the problem in the process of its modernization. Thoreau's ideas could give China some insight from the perspective of culture and reflection on modernization. Thoreau's critiques on industrial civilization can still provide warning to China's modernization. It seems that the conflict he predicted between man and nature brought about by industrial civilization is impossible to avoid. China has focused its development strategy on economic construction and taken the conflict between growing material and cultural needs and backward social production as the principal contradiction since 1978. Therefore, it is the aim for China to develop the productive forces vigorously and promote the Chinese modernization as rapidly as possible. Development is no doubt the central theme of China. China has begun to recognize the ecological problems and is trying to develop in an all-round, coordinated and sustainable manner. Thoreau's cosmological beliefs of life embodied in his work remind us of the eco-wisdom in ancient Chinese philosophy. He took nature as man and liked to have dialogues with nature without any prejudice. While Thoreau who was enlightened by the ancient Chinese philosophy had a great influence on American nature writing, his ideas about nature have rich ecological meaning and have become the symbol of non-anthropocentric environment ethics now. His representative book Walden has become a classic, which continues to influence more and more people to devote themselves to environmental protection. Many scholars begin to make systematic studies on the ancient Chinese ecological thought, rediscovering and reinterpreting the ecological ideas of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. 2009 Yang Jincai : There are three different stages as regards the Chinese projections of Thoreau. The first stage from the 1920s to 1949 marks China's burgeoning interest in the American writer featured by a passion for Western literature as both cultural and intellectual nourishment. The second is mainly a period of ideological appraisals from 1949 to 1977 in which Thoreau is regarded as a champion of democracy and a critic of American capitalist civilization. The third one is known as the multiple approach period from 1978 onwards in which Thoreau studies has flourished and continues to grow in China. Focused discussions have revealed the following: (1) comparative approaches have been made into the Chinese elements in the formation of Thoreau's notion of civilization and views of Nature; (2) critical attention has been drawn on Thoreau's political thought and ecological awareness, rendering a multitude of interpretations both textually and theoretically; and (3) further discussions focus primarily on Thoreau's personal conduct raising a question of how to appraise Thoreau's withdrawal from society and giving rise to an ambiguous identity of Thoreau. |
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| 2 | 1854 |
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden ; or, Life in the woods [ID D29692]. 1. Economy 1-A I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to live in New England; something about your condition, especially your outward condition or circumstances in this world, in this town, what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is, whether it cannot be improved as well as not. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know not much about them. Confucius said, "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge." [Confucius, Analects]. 1-B I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough. (Massachusetts began trading with China in the 1780's). When Madam Pfeiffer, in her adventurous travels round the world, from east to west, had got so near home as Asiatic Russia, she says that she felt the necessity of wearing other than a travelling dress, when she went to meet the authorities, for she "was now in a civilized country, where ... people are judged of by their clothes." [Ida Pfeiffer, A lady's voyage around the world]. 1-D As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles rattle; but I think that I shall not go out of my way to admire the hole which he made. Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East — to know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them — who were above such trifling. But to proceed with my statistics. 1-E Being a microcosm himself, he discovers — and it is a true discovery, and he is the man to make it — that the world has been eating green apples; to his eyes, in fact, the globe itself is a great green apple, which there is danger awful to think of that the children of men will nibble before it is ripe; and straightway his drastic philanthropy seeks out the Esquimaux and the Patagonian, and embraces the populous Indian and Chinese villages; and thus, by a few years of philanthropic activity, the powers in the meanwhile using him for their own ends, no doubt, he cures himself of his dyspepsia, the globe acquires a faint blush on one or both of its cheeks, as if it were beginning to be ripe, and life loses its crudity and is once more sweet and wholesome to live. 2. Where I lived, and what I lived for They say that characters were engraved on the bathing tub of King Tching Thang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again." I can understand that. [Kommentar von Zengzi zu Da xue]. "Kieou-he-yu (great dignitary of the state of Wei) sent a man to Khoung-tseu to know his news. Khoung-tseu caused the messenger to be seated near him, and questioned him in these terms: What is your master doing? The messenger answered with respect: My master desires to diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot come to the end of them. The messenger being gone, the philosopher remarked: What a worthy messenger! What a worthy messenger!" [Confucius, Analects]. 5. Solitude We are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little interesting to me. Can we not do without the society of our gossips a little while under these circumstances — have our own thoughts to cheer us? Confucius says truly, "Virtue does not remain as an abandoned orphan; it must of necessity have neighbors." [Confucius, Analects]. "How vast and profound is the influence of the subtile powers of Heaven and of Earth!" "We seek to perceive them, and we do not see them; we seek to hear them, and we do not hear them; identified with the substance of things, they cannot be separated from them." "They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify their hearts, and clothe themselves in their holiday garments to offer sacrifices and oblations to their ancestors. It is an ocean of subtile intelligences. They are everywhere, above us, on our left, on our right; they environ us on all sides." [Confucius, The doctrine of the mean]. 8. The village "You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends." [Confucius, Analects]. 11. Higher laws "The soul not being mistress of herself," says Thseng-tseu, "one looks, and one does not see; one listens, and one does not hear; one eats, and one does not know the savor of food." He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise. [Confucius, The great learning]. "That in which men differ from brute beasts," says Mencius, "is a thing very inconsiderable; the common herd lose it very soon; superior men preserve it carefully." 12. Brute neighbors I will just try these three sentences of Confutsee; they may fetch that state about again. I know not whether it was the dumps or a budding ecstasy. Mem. There never is but one opportunity of a kind. 17. Spring "A return to goodness produced each day in the tranquil and beneficent breath of the morning, causes that in respect to the love of virtue and the hatred of vice, one approaches a little the primitive nature of man, as the sprouts of the forest which has been felled. In like manner the evil which one does in the interval of a day prevents the germs of virtues which began to spring up again from developing themselves and destroys them. After the germs of virtue have thus been prevented many times from developing themselves, then the beneficent breath of evening does not suffice to preserve them. As soon as the breath of evening does not suffice longer to preserve them, then the nature of man does not differ much from that of the brute. Men seeing the nature of this man like that of the brute, think that he has never possessed the innate faculty of reason. Are those the true and natural sentiments of man?" [Mencius]. 18. Conclusion Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist. Start now on that farthest western way, which does not pause at the Mississippi or the Pacific, nor conduct toward a wornout China or Japan, but leads on direct, a tangent to this sphere, summer and winter, day and night, sun down, moon down, and at last earth down too. Consider the China pride and stagnant self-complacency of mankind. The philosopher said: "From an army of three divisions one can take away its general, and put it in disorder; from the man the most abject and vulgar one cannot take away his thought." [Confucius, Analects]. Sekundärliteratur 1988 Chen Chang-fang : Thoreau undertook at Walden Pond the program of self-development that was remarkably similar to the one advocated in the Confucian Four books. |
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Cited by (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2000- | Asien-Orient-Institut Universität Zürich | Organisation / AOI |
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