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  • Comment on The Bean-Field 9-17 by Michael Frederick
    Posted in: General Discussion "I felt as if I could spit a Mexican with a good relish..." This is an example of the Dionysian in Thoreau.  He is swept up by the martial spirit of music from the village and feels himself capable of violence but instead sublimates his energy into tending his bean-field, doing […]
  • Comment on Solitude by Michael Frederick
    Posted in: General Discussion That's why Thoreau says: "We are not wholly involved in Nature." The "dancer" and "Nature" desist from the dance.  Thoreau's double consciousness is of himself engaged in the "field of action," as HDT, where he must be ethical, and "outside" the field of action as Spectator (non-judging).  Awareness of judging/non-judging attitude […]
  • Comment on Solitude by Michael Frederick
    Posted in: General Discussion The dichotomy, me and not-me, and the "spectator" is relatable to the Contact passage in "Ktaadn," where Thoreau distinguishes between spirit (which he says "I am one") and matter (which he says "has possession of me").  This is, in fact, the condition of purusha (roughly spirit) and prakriti (matter) in the […]
  • Comment on Solitude by Henrik Otterberg
    Posted in: General Discussion Wonderful Mike, so good of your to allow your full PDF to be shared here! I urge anyone interested in this problematic to consult Mike's Transcendental Ethos, p. 22 ff. Here Cousin gets a fuller gloss and appropriate context, I learned much from it. I wish I had caught this earlier, […]
  • Comment on Solitude by Michael Frederick
    Posted in: General Discussion Also, see:  http://commons.digitalthoreau.org/docs/frederick-transcendental-ethos-a-study-of-thoreaus-social-philosophy/ Victor Cousins is discussed in "Transcendental Ethos," page 22.

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