Henry David Thoreau -- Texts and Reading and Discussion Questions

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"On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"

• "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" [Text]
• Thoreau's Nonchalance in "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"
• Thoreau's Plain Rhetoric
• Jacobean Tragedy and "Civil Disobedience": Thoreau's Bedfellows
• Rhetorical Questions in Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau and Apple Pie
• Alienating the Audience versus Alliance with it
• Thoreau's Wordplay in "Civil Disobedience"
• Verse in "Civil Disobedience"
• Henry David Thoreau: Civil disobedience or what?
• You can lead a horse to water, but should you?
• Thoreau's literary technique, or lack thereof
• Wooden Men and the Use of Lists
• The Machine of Government
• Thoreau in Prison

"Slavery in Massachusetts"

• Absurd as Reasonable in Henry David Thoreau's "Slavery in Massachusetts"
• The Use of Personification in Thoreau's "Slavery in Massachusetts"
• Higher Law and Moral Relativism: Rhetorically Circumventing Both in "Slavery in Massachusetts"
• Eloquence in a Waterlily
• Thoreau's Common Sense Appeal
• Thoreau vs. Ashcroft
• Living in Hell
• Thoreau and the Grotesque
• Analogous to Slavery

"A Plea for Captain John Brown"

• "A Plea for Captain John Brown" [Text]
• Identity of an American Opposed to America
• John Brown's body is a-surfing on the wave
• Thoreau's Rhetoric
• Thoreau's Voice
• Humor and Overstatement in "A Plea for John Brown"
• Us and Them in Thoreau's "A Plea for Captain John Brown"
• Thoreau's Savior
• John Brown's Body
• A Plea for Heroes

"Life without Principle"

• Comparing Introductions by Ruskin and Thoreau
• Idealism in "Life without Principle"

Discussion of Multiple Essays

• Nature as both Metaphor and Model for Our Actions

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Last modified 10 April 2005