“Spring” from Walden

By: Rajan, Traemar, Krishna, and Amith

Ms. Mathews

Period 3

Spring……….

• was written by Henry David Thoreau

• was written in 1888

• is found in Thoreau’s Walden

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Nature

marathi.wunderground.com

http://www.anotherpartofme.co

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“The cracking and

booming of the ice

indicate a change

of temperature.”

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www.goldmanprize.org

Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism is about how your thoughts and spirituality are more

important than ordinary human experiences.

It is an offshoot of Romanticism but it has a couple of differences like views on

God and

http://intothewildtranscendentalism.weebl

y.com/transcendentalism.htmlhttp://www.transcendentalists.com/1thorea.html

Basic Beliefs of Transcendentalism

are:

● Quest for Truth

● Individualism

● Strong connection of Nature

● Dislike for Materialism

● Must rely on Intuition

● Self-reliance

Transcendentalism in

‘Spring’

In the 3rd paragraph he talks about living in the woods

In the 4th paragraph he talks about a man and his connection to nature

Mans connection to Spring

Using science to understand what is happening

Paragraph 7 is about expressing that everything is important

Paragraph 8 is connecting humans to nature

Paragraph 9 is about how materialism is nothing compared to the spirtuality of

nature

Paragraph 13 is about how he strives for growth

What is Science?

-Science is the intellectual and practical activity

encompassing the systematic study of the structure and

behavior of the physical and natural world through

observation and experiment.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science http://researchmeth.wikispaces.com/Qualitative+Research

Science in Relation to

Nature - Throughout “Spring”, there are a myriad of references to the

changes that occur in nature which are able to be

explained scientifically.

- Scientific relations aid in making clear and logical

explanations to the phenomena that occur throughout each

season.

-Henry David Thoreau alludes to a plethora of scientific

aspects in order to enhance his descriptions of Spring

throughout Walden.

Science in “Spring”

- “In spring the sun not only exerts an influence through the increased

temperature of the air and earth, but its heat passes through ice a foot or

more thick, and is reflected from the bottom in shallow water, and so also

warms the water and melts the under side of the ice, at the same time that it

is melting it more directly above, making it uneven, and causing the air

bubbles which it contains to extend themselves upward and downward until

it is completely honeycombed, and at last disappears suddenly in a single

spring rain.

-Imagery; draws vivid picture of process

Science in “Spring”

- “The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and

evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer.”

- Refers to seasons in nature to describe Walden Pond.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Walden_Pond.jpg

Science in “Spring”

- The pond began to boom about an hour after sunrise, when it felt the

influence of the sun's rays slanted upon it from over the hills; it stretched

itself and yawned like a waking man with a gradually increasing tumult,

which was kept up three or four hours. It took a short siesta at noon, and

boomed once more toward night, as the sun was withdrawing his influence.

-Personification and similes to intertwine nature with science.

Science in “Spring”

- “I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the chance note of

some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, for his stores must be now

nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters.”

- Birds, squirrels, and woodchucks are known to emerge to mark beginning of

Spring (Proven through Scientific Observation).

Science in “Spring”

-Duck Hunting example

-Shows how nature plays tricks on even the most intelligent men.

- Thoreau delights at the various colors of sand as he sees them as

vegetation.

-Relation between innate objects into beautiful, luscious pieces of the world.

-He compares man to a "mass of thawing clay," with fingers and toes as

leaves and the ear as a lichen.

-Thoreau enjoys the "forms which this molten earth flows into."

Rebirth

- Overall theme is rebirth

-Walden was dead in the Winter and is reborn in the Spring

-The rebirth of the pond symbolizes the rebirth of Thoreau's spirit.

-Thoreau feels that old grudges should be abandoned and old sins forgiven in

this time of renewed life.

http://george.loper.org/interests/housing/thero/thoreau.html

Thoreau’s Philosophy

❖ In Walden, Thoreau urged the need of

spiritual rebirth for mankind.

❖ Thoreau’s influence of this came through the

pond’s emergence of spring from winter.

http://www.rainydaymagazine.com/RDM2006/RainyDayTrips/Wa

ldenPond/GreatBlueHeronBig.jpg

Philosophy in “Spring”“In a pleasant spring morning all men's sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to vice.

While such a sun holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return. Through our own

recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors. You may have

known your neighbor yesterday for a thief, a drunkard, or a sensualist, and merely

pitied or despised him, and despaired of the world; but the sun shines bright and

warm this first spring morning, recreating the world, and you meet him at some

serene work, and see how it is exhausted and debauched veins expand with still joy

and bless the new day, feel the spring influence with the innocence of infancy, and

all his faults are forgotten.”

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content/uploads/2010/11/group-hug.jpg

Philosophy in “Spring”

“I have penetrated to those meadows on the morning of many a first spring day,

jumping from hummock to hummock, from willow root to willow root, when the

wild river valley and the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as would

have waked the dead, if they had been slumbering in their graves, as some suppose.

There needs no stronger proof of immortality. All things must live in such a light. O

Death, where was thy sting? O Grave, where was thy victory, then.”

Philosophy in “Spring”

“Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows

which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness — to wade sometimes in marshes

where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to

smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds

her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.”

Philosophy in “Spring”

“We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.”