DONALD
ROSS
210L Lind Hall, (612) 625-5585
rossj001@tc.umn.edu
Department of English, University of Minnesota
with Stephen Adams, "Thoreau's 'Ktaadn': 'The main astonishment at
last,'" English Language Notes, (1983), 39-47.
By analyzing the revisions in journal passages which led to "Ktaadn,"
this essay shows how Thoreau's feelings and his writing were out of
control as a result of his experience on the mountain. Having
encountered on Ktaadn the smallness of man and failure of his
imagination to create a human space there, Thoreau no longer
anticipates a future in which civilization turns the wilderness into
lumber. Instead, three centuries collapse for him and he sees the
wilderness, both Maine and the West swallow civilization.
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Last revised 15 November 1999
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