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| Walden by Haiku
ISBN: 9780820336152
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / University of Georgia Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Natural history; Haiku American.;
In this intriguing literary experiment, Ian Marshall presents a collection of nearly three hundred haiku that he extracted from Henry David Thoreau's Walden and documents the underlying similarities between Thoreau's prose and the art of haiku.
Although Thoreau would never have encountered the Japanese haiku tradition, the way in which the most important ideas in Walden find expression in the most haikulike language suggests that Thoreau at Walden Pond and the haiku master Basho at his "old pond" might have drunk at the same well. Walden and the tradition of haiku share an aesthetic that embodies ideas in natural images, dissolves boundaries between self and world, emphasizes simplicity, and honors both solitude and humble, familiar objects. Marshall examines each of these aesthetic principles and offers a relevant collection of "found" haiku. In the second part of the book, he explains his process of finding the haiku in the text, breaking down each chapter of Walden to highlight the imagery and poetic language embedded in the most powerful passages.
Marshall's exploration not only provides a fresh perspective on haiku, but also sheds new light on Thoreau's much-studied text and lays the foundation for a clearer understanding of the aesthetics of American nature writing.
Ian Marshall is an author and artist from County Fife, Scotland. A member of the American Society of Marine Artists, his paintings of ships have been shown throughout the world. In the United States, he has exhibited at the U.S. Navy Museum in Washington, D.C., The U.S. Naval Academy and the Marine Maritime Museum. Marshall is the author of three books of ship paintings, "Passage East," "Armored Ships," and "Ironclads and Paddlers." Ian Marshall received his education in architecture from the University of Cape Town and the University of Pennsylvania. He has practiced architecture mainly in East and Central Africa. He has also served as a consultant to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. (Bowker Author Biography) |
