A Poetic Life

Henry David Thoreau was a famous American nature writer and preservation thinker of the 19^th century. He was a keen observer of nature. By dwelling in nature for a long time, he discovered the kinship existing between nature and human beings. He thus greatly opposed materialism and industrialization, which, in his opinion, brought about the degeneration of people's spirit and the ruin of original beauty in the world. In his days, his hometown, Concord, was the center of American Renaissance and the locus of many lecturing activities which provided him the chance to give many lectures about nature and encourage people to respect wilderness. But despite his active role both as a writer and a thinker in his time, he was somewhat ignored by his contemporary critics. Only with the coming of the global environmental crisis and the rise of various environmental movements did he begin to draw critical attention, for in his works depicting the beauty of nature and concerning human-nature relationship, critics detected not only a personal experiment with a natural life but also a holistic philosophy of the relationship between man and nature. For the critics, all of those findings could be a way to arouse people's environmental consciousness. Thus Thoreau was given all critical acclaims and even regarded as "the first American environmentalist saint" as well as "one of the few American writers of the nineteenth century who deserves the appellation 'great'". Ever since then, his works have been widely read not only in America but also all over the world, especially his masterpiece Walden .The present paper is a tentative study of Thoreau's philosophical and aesthetic ideas of life and nature. It is divided into five parts. Part One gives an introduction to the background and developing process of ecological criticism. Over the past decades, the increasing deterioration of the global environmental crisis has greatly called people's attention to environmental protection and promoted the development of ecological literature, in which Thoreau was discovered. Nowadays, ecological criticism has been fully developed in the west while it is still at the primary stage in China, so there is much to do for Chinese scholars.Part Two is concerned with Thoreau's life experience. Then in the third part the paper attempts to analyze Thoreau's thoughts. In his early years Thoreau showed greatinterest in transcendentalism and was introduced to the transcendental circle by Ralph Waldo Emerson, with whom he developed a long friendship. Later, with Emerson's help, he had an opportunity to live at Walden Pond for more than two years, which, as we know, was a very important experience for him. Meanwhile, Thoreau had a lifelong fascination with American Indian culture and in his late life he was also attracted by oriental philosophy, which enabled him to break through the convention and formed a different view about life from his contemporaries.Part Four focuses on Thoreau's life in the woods for more than two years. According to the experience, the paper analyzes his life philosophy from four aspects. In Walden, Thoreau expressed his severe criticism of the materialism of modern society and called on people to seek "simplicity". As an active transcendentalist, he attached much importance to spiritual independence, especially the cultivation of individual conscience. Besides, he was critical of conventional mode of education, encouraging people to be active enough in learning activities so as to acquire true knowledge. Finally, the paper indicates that Thoreau advocated returning to nature to realize the spiritual sublimation in the harmonious coexistence with any other species on earth.From the above analysis, we can see that Thoreau has left a great cultural legacy to the world. His ideas about life not only predict the arrival of today's ecological crisis, but also point out the direction in which people should take in the future. His ideas about the relationship between nature and human beings subvert the traditional ethics and prove so attractive to ecological ethics. Thoreau deserves a great ecological thinker and philosopher. Finally, the paper points out that Thoreau's ideas about life are of great significance to the world trudging in the serious ecological crisis. However, what we should learn from Thoreau is his insight and the essence of his philosophy, but not the superficial imitation of his life style. Therefore, it is necessary for us to actively join the army of environmental protection and fearlessly defend our earth as Thoreau, for it is the only way to save our homeland.