Henry David Thoreau - Grasping the Community of the World

The study deals with human community and its relation with the individual. It takes recourse to the notions of friendship, moral respect and solidarity which allow for the extension of the notion of community above the limitations of the human sphere and takes up Thoreau's work as early and prophetic diagnosis of the modern crisis of relationships.

This study takes up Thoreau's work as an early and prophetic diagnosis of the modern crisis of relationships between the individual and society. Thus Adorno's formulation of «a melancholy of science» finds its predecessor in Thoreau's famous dictum from the early pages of Walden that we live our lives in quiet desperation. The author reads Thoreau's Journal as an attempt to refute tendencies towards the narrowing of life to being understood merely in techno-economic categories which threaten the quality of the development of both the individual and the community. Thus in literary scholarship it is essential to find strategies which will critically contribute to understanding and transforming what Auerbach called «ways of life» and what Barthes referred to as «living-together».

Autorentext

Tadeusz S awek is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland). His numerous works on history and theory of literature include discussions of William Blake, Robinson Jeffers, Georg Trakl, William Shakespeare, and Jacques Derrida. Jean Ward is an Associate Professor of the University of Gdäsk (Poland).

Klappentext

This study takes up Thoreau s work as an early and prophetic diagnosis of the modern crisis of relationships between the individual and society. Thus Adornös formulation of «a melancholy of science» finds its predecessor in Thoreau s famous dictum from the early pages of Walden that we live our lives in quiet desperation. The author reads Thoreau s Journal as an attempt to refute tendencies towards the narrowing of life to being understood merely in techno-economic categories which threaten the quality of the development of both the individual and the community. Thus in literary scholarship it is essential to find strategies which will critically contribute to understanding and transforming what Auerbach called «ways of life» and what Barthes referred to as «living-together».

Zusammenfassung
«A book like this deserves to be lauded in many voices [...].»
(Mark S. Burrows, Polish Journal for American Studies 10/2016)

Inhalt

Contents: Community The human Non-human Friendship America Wilderness Habitation Perception Henry David Thoreau Roland Barthes Erich Auerbach.