Henry David Thoreau's Aesthetics

The aim of the analysis is to show how Thoreau anticipated modern, 20th century notions of world and art. Following a summary of Baumgarten's, Leibniz', Descartes' and Kant's aesthetic theories five basic aesthetic questions are formulated. A close reading of Walden and the Journal answers these questions in regard to Thoreau's artistic approach. The close reading documents his life-long struggle for an adequate perception of the phenomena that «made his world». To Thoreau even the most trivial thing expressed its divine character through its specific beauty. The last two chapters of the analysis reveal the connections that exist between Thoreau's aesthetics of the trivial and 20th century aesthetics, between his notion of nature as expression and recent biosemiotic theory.

Autorentext

The Author: Verena Kerting was born in Stuttgart in 1973. She studied English and German Literature at the University of Heidelberg from where she graduated in 2001. After teaching at the German Department of Yale University for one year she received her Ph.D. in 2005 and started a teachers training course in the same year.

Inhalt

Contents: «Aesthetics» - An Ambivalent Term - A Definition of «Aesthetics»: Five Fundamental Questions - Thoreau's Aesthetics - A Textual Analysis - Thoreau's Aesthetic Position: Trying to Answer Five Fundamental Questions - Modern Implications of Thoreau's Aesthetic Position.