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. Marshall examines each of these.
Table of contents
Marshall has anticipated your complaints. As he well knows, although Walden is permeated with references to Sufi, Hindu, and Confucian writings, indeed the skeptics are correct, Henry Thoreau never read a haiku. So calm down, he is telling skeptics. Let us count the ways: But, we might plausibly ask, if Thoreau was unaware of haiku, how is it possible that his writing exhibits so many haiku traits? Marshall proposes a process of convergent evolution as a result of convergent desires: The suggestion that haiku-like aesthetics occur in Walden because of the convergence of aesthetic and philosophic aims and methods is, it seems to me, even more intellectually compelling than if such comparable aesthetics occurred simply because Thoreau had read some haiku.
So what, exactly, is Walden by Haiku? Marshall admirably achieves all of these goals. The book is in three parts. The first Introduction is a lengthy discussion in which Marshall explains and defends his task and suggests some of the implications of his project.
I actually do a haiku lesson in an environmental studies class that I team-teach with a biologist. And one thing we talk about in reference to haiku is that just as a scientist begins, even before a scientist constructs a hypothesis, begins with just observing: What do you see? So, you begin before you decide what things mean, you begin by observing. Why do people like Basho and Thoreau have something similar in the way that they look at the natural world? I think because they paid attention and they delighted in the attention they paid to the natural world.
You wonder about those echoes, is it memories; is it a yearning for a friend, a companion?
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When you go there, especially if you happen to visit on a warm weekend in the summer. Smell all the suntan oil.
Walden by Haiku by Ian Marshall
But, I also found once you leave the public beach and start making your way around the pond, by the time you get to the other side I think I saw a birdwatcher or two, took a swim with some ducks. So, you just move away from the public beach and you can experience some of the solitude Thoreau might have felt there. I hope he would be pleased that someone was so interested in what he had to say that they wanted to dwell on his words to this extent — to shape it into a different literary form.
But, I imagine he would have been sympathetic to the goals of haiku and to the practice of haiku.
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Walden by Haiku
Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Walden by Haiku by Ian Marshall. Walden by Haiku by Ian Marshall. Walden by Haiku 3. 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.
Walden by 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.
Hardcover , pages.
Published May 15th by University of Georgia Press. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Walden by Haiku , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia.