I have been thinking a lot about Thoreau's opening paragraph and the way that it seems to make Walden a travel book even as Thoreau derides travel and travel books. Thoreau explains that his book will detail the experiences that he had in the woods from whence he has returned. The rest of the book details what he did there and what he observed while he was away: two crucial aspects of any travel book. This seems like a contradiction, though when we trace Thoreau's use of the word "travel" (or traveller) throughout the book there are instances when he does not use it as a pejorative. What makes sense of this seeming contradiction is the last sentence of the book's first paragraph, "At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again"(1). A sojourner is a temporary visitor, or a traveler. Thoreau does not see the civilized world as his home, then, but as a foreign place that he visits and observes. His book is a reverse-travel narrative, not intended to describe his travels to his countrymen, but to describe his native land to foreigners (his townsmen). Part of the seeming contradiction has to do with audience. As we discussed in class, Thoreau has no respect for travel books. He writes, "I read one or two shallow books of travel in the intervals of my work, till that employment made me ashamed of myself, and I asked where it was then that I lived" (68). His project in this book, then, is to explain to himself where he lives and also to explain it to his townsmen. For them, Walden will not be a "shallow book of travel," but a description of their native land. However, when we read this book in southern Indiana, or Paris, or China, it does indeed become a travel book. Since Walden Pond is foreign to us, we read Thoreau's adventures there as a sort of heroic exploration narrative. This still works within the bounds of Thoreau's project, so long as Walden does not become a "shallow" travel book. He avoids this by taking pains to explain two types of deep travel: the foot traveler and the internal traveler. In the hiking to Fitchburg episode in "Economy," Thoreau writes, "One says to me, "I wonder that you do not lay up money; you love to travel; you might take the cars and go to Fitchburg today and see the country." But I am wiser than that. I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot" (36). Thoreau lets the claim that he loves to travel stand, what he argues against is traveling too fast, and having to work in order to do so. In this sense, all of his adventures at Walden are acceptable travels, since he explores on foot (which allows him to travel deliberately, seeing what others do not see) and he travels directly. His foot travels are unmediated by work. The interior traveling becomes especially interesting to me when he positions it against the travels of the great polar explorers of his time. He questions the search for John Franklin in his Conclusion, writing, "Is it ... a Northwest Passage around this continent, that we would find? Are these the problems which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? ... explore your own higher latitudes..." (214). I'll explain why this surprised me at first. Franklin's first journey to the polar seas in 1818-1822 was a foot journey. He and his men covered thousands of miles on foot and by canoe, traveling from the Hudson Bay to the Arctic Ocean and back. The book Franklin wrote on his return is filled with detailed descriptions of both the external landscape that Franklin and his men traveled through and Franklin's own corresponding internal landscape that responded to what he encountered. Franklin did indeed explore his "own higher-latitudes," on that voyage. I suppose that Thoreau would say that he did not need to go North in order to do this, but I think that this Franklin reference has another meaning as well. Franklin dissapeared into the Arctic on his third attempt at finding the Northwest Passage, and mid-century Arctic exploration became dominated not by the search for the passage, but by the search for Franklin. British and American ships scoured the polar seas in search of the lost hero, whose remains were never found (the note in my Norton Critical edition is wrong: some remains were found by Mclintock in 1859, but not Franklin's). This enormous rescue effort provided fodder for some enormous egos, and I think this is what Thoreau takes issue with. Grinnell (an American explorer who led expeditions in search of Franklin) should stay home and search for himself. Local, foot travel and exploration is perfectly acceptable for Thoreau, but it is a poor second to exploring our interior landscapes. Walden is a reverse-travel book, written by a "sojourner in civilized life" who sees his townsmen as oblivious zombies. But since he sees all townspeople as ignorant of the true reality, we become his audience by extension. Thoreau clearly read exploration literature. He names Franklin, Grinnell, Symmes, and the American Exploring Expedition (all published polar expeditions, or theorists in Symmes' case) and these are only the polar explorers he lists. Yet they must fall under the "shallow books of travel" category for Thoreau, as he exhorts his reader to "... obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. " (215)
Very good. In the letter to Sumner I showed at the Lilly Thoreau is thanking him for government exploring expedition reports he received; like any self-respecting naturalist he devoured expedition reports. Here he denigrates them--not to attack travel as such but the kind of mindset that looks at travel as a panacea for some kind of inner malady (he and Emerson make a similar argument about philanthropy). It's the very same expectation that Philip Larkin ironizes in one of his poems as the hope that "elsewhere strangeness makes sense." So, if like Franklin, you go on an expedition and at the same time explore yourself, Thoreau wouldn't have had a problem with that. But it is also true that most expedition reports and travelogues that he read were light on introspection. --E.B. White (of Charlotte's Web fame) borrowed the "sojourner" metaphor in his essay "A Report in Spring." I might have mentioned this in class, but Elizabeth Stoddard's great novel The Morgesons (1862) begins with the young heroine reading all sorts of travel books to escape from her misery in post-Puritan New England--which sets the stage for a narrative in which everything and everybody stays pretty much in place. A brilliant move.
I have been thinking a lot about Thoreau's opening paragraph and the way that it seems to make Walden a travel book even as Thoreau derides travel and travel books. Thoreau explains that his book will detail the experiences that he had in the woods from whence he has returned. The rest of the book details what he did there and what he observed while he was away: two crucial aspects of any travel book. This seems like a contradiction, though when we trace Thoreau's use of the word "travel" (or traveller) throughout the book there are instances when he does not use it as a pejorative. What makes sense of this seeming contradiction is the last sentence of the book's first paragraph, "At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again"(1). A sojourner is a temporary visitor, or a traveler. Thoreau does not see the civilized world as his home, then, but as a foreign place that he visits and observes. His book is a reverse-travel narrative, not intended to describe his travels to his countrymen, but to describe his native land to foreigners (his townsmen).
ReplyDeletePart of the seeming contradiction has to do with audience. As we discussed in class, Thoreau has no respect for travel books. He writes, "I read one or two shallow books of travel in the intervals of my work, till that employment made me ashamed of myself, and I asked where it was then that I lived" (68). His project in this book, then, is to explain to himself where he lives and also to explain it to his townsmen. For them, Walden will not be a "shallow book of travel," but a description of their native land. However, when we read this book in southern Indiana, or Paris, or China, it does indeed become a travel book. Since Walden Pond is foreign to us, we read Thoreau's adventures there as a sort of heroic exploration narrative. This still works within the bounds of Thoreau's project, so long as Walden does not become a "shallow" travel book. He avoids this by taking pains to explain two types of deep travel: the foot traveler and the internal traveler.
In the hiking to Fitchburg episode in "Economy," Thoreau writes, "One says to me, "I wonder that you do not lay up money; you love to travel; you might take the cars and go to Fitchburg today and see the country." But I am wiser than that. I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot" (36). Thoreau lets the claim that he loves to travel stand, what he argues against is traveling too fast, and having to work in order to do so. In this sense, all of his adventures at Walden are acceptable travels, since he explores on foot (which allows him to travel deliberately, seeing what others do not see) and he travels directly. His foot travels are unmediated by work.
The interior traveling becomes especially interesting to me when he positions it against the travels of the great polar explorers of his time. He questions the search for John Franklin in his Conclusion, writing, "Is it ... a Northwest Passage around this continent, that we would find? Are these the problems which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? ... explore your own higher latitudes..." (214). I'll explain why this surprised me at first. Franklin's first journey to the polar seas in 1818-1822 was a foot journey. He and his men covered thousands of miles on foot and by canoe, traveling from the Hudson Bay to the Arctic Ocean and back. The book Franklin wrote on his return is filled with detailed descriptions of both the external landscape that Franklin and his men traveled through and Franklin's own corresponding internal landscape that responded to what he encountered. Franklin did indeed explore his "own higher-latitudes," on that voyage. I suppose that Thoreau would say that he did not need to go North in order to do this, but I think that this Franklin reference has another meaning as well. Franklin dissapeared into the Arctic on his third attempt at finding the Northwest Passage, and mid-century Arctic exploration became dominated not by the search for the passage, but by the search for Franklin. British and American ships scoured the polar seas in search of the lost hero, whose remains were never found (the note in my Norton Critical edition is wrong: some remains were found by Mclintock in 1859, but not Franklin's). This enormous rescue effort provided fodder for some enormous egos, and I think this is what Thoreau takes issue with. Grinnell (an American explorer who led expeditions in search of Franklin) should stay home and search for himself.
Local, foot travel and exploration is perfectly acceptable for Thoreau, but it is a poor second to exploring our interior landscapes. Walden is a reverse-travel book, written by a "sojourner in civilized life" who sees his townsmen as oblivious zombies. But since he sees all townspeople as ignorant of the true reality, we become his audience by extension. Thoreau clearly read exploration literature. He names Franklin, Grinnell, Symmes, and the American Exploring Expedition (all published polar expeditions, or theorists in Symmes' case) and these are only the polar explorers he lists. Yet they must fall under the "shallow books of travel" category for Thoreau, as he exhorts his reader to "... obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. " (215)
Very good. In the letter to Sumner I showed at the Lilly Thoreau is thanking him for government exploring expedition reports he received; like any self-respecting naturalist he devoured expedition reports. Here he denigrates them--not to attack travel as such but the kind of mindset that looks at travel as a panacea for some kind of inner malady (he and Emerson make a similar argument about philanthropy). It's the very same expectation that Philip Larkin ironizes in one of his poems as the hope that "elsewhere strangeness makes sense." So, if like Franklin, you go on an expedition and at the same time explore yourself, Thoreau wouldn't have had a problem with that. But it is also true that most expedition reports and travelogues that he read were light on introspection. --E.B. White (of Charlotte's Web fame) borrowed the "sojourner" metaphor in his essay "A Report in Spring." I might have mentioned this in class, but Elizabeth Stoddard's great novel The Morgesons (1862) begins with the young heroine reading all sorts of travel books to escape from her misery in post-Puritan New England--which sets the stage for a narrative in which everything and everybody stays pretty much in place. A brilliant move.
ReplyDelete