Walden como ponto de chegada da reflexão sobre modernidade em América / Walden as the arrival point for the reflection on modernity in America

Resumo: Monteiro Lobato participou de forma ativa do processo de modernização pelo qual o Brasil passou nas décadas iniciais do século XX. O escritor vivenciou a modernidade sentindo o abalo nas estruturas referenciais que davam aos indivíduos estabilidade no mundo social. Ele experienciou, assim como seus contemporâneos, as profundas transformações pelas quais a sociedade passava e, a partir disso, buscou por meio da literatura e de suas outras atividades cumprir o papel de crítico dessas experiências, reagindo, portanto, ao “turbilhão de permanente desintegração e mudança” (BERMAN, 2007, p. 24), que, a nosso ver, figura-se como uma maneira de caracterizar a modernidade. Compreende-se, então, que um estudo sobre a obra de Monteiro Lobato deve incluir a discussão sobre a modernização e a modernidade. Escolhe-se, para tanto, América, obra desse autor que de forma mais explícita e constante discute essa temática. O presente artigo objetiva, assim, analisar uma das formas pelas quais a modernidade se vê representada nessa obra, a saber, através do diálogo que ela estabelece com a obra Walden, do escritor norte-americano Henry David Thoreau, pensada aqui como ponto de chegada para a reflexão sobre a modernidade em América.Palavras-chave: Monteiro Lobato; América; Henry David Thoreau; Walden; modernidade.Abstract: Monteiro Lobato actively participated in the modernization process that Brazil went through in the early decades of the 20th century. The writer experienced modernity feeling the shock in the referential structures that gave individuals stability in the social world. He experienced, as did his contemporaries, the profound transformations that society was going through and, from there, he sought through literature and his other activities to fulfill the role of critic of these experiences, reacting, therefore, to the “turmoil of permanent disintegration and change” (BERMAN, 2007, p.24), which, in our view, appears as a way of characterizing modernity. It is understood, then, that a study on the work of Monteiro Lobato must include the discussion on modernization and modernity. To this end, America is chosen, as the work of this author that more explicitly and constantly discusses these themes. This article aims, therefore, to analyze one of the ways in which modernity is represented in this work, namely, through the dialogue it establishes with the work of Walden, by the American writer Henry David Thoreau, thought here as a point of arrival for reflection on modernity in America.Keywords: Monteiro Lobato; América; Henry David Thoreau; Walden; modernity.

Translation Program and “Philosophy” Series

The review presents the main translations of the classics of philosophical literature in previous years. The publication was made in cooperation with the Mizhvukhamy Foundation and the Tempora Publishing House. The main stress of the review is made on the works of Emanuele Severino, Ibn Sina, Henry David Thoreau and Edmund Husserl.

Cage’s Imitation Game: Cheap Imitation and Song Books through the sketches

The theme of John Cage’s Song Books (1970), according to Cage, is contained in the statement “We connect Satie with Thoreau” (".fn_cite($cage_1970).", 1). Previous studies of Cage’s Song Books have not asked what I feel to be obvious questions: how, precisely, does Cage connect Satie with Thoreau? To what end? And how does Cage connect to Satie and Thoreau (and to the other sources from which he borrows)? I make use of Cage’s sketch materials to seek answers. I examine three of the Solos for Voice from Song Books that make use of the cheap-imitation procedure that Cage had devised for his work of that name in 1969. Because Song Books is a work for vocalists while Cheap Imitation is a work for solo piano, Cage needed to apply analogous processes of textual “imitation” and mixture to the words of Thoreau to accompany the cheap imitations of the music of Satie. This article explores the persistence of compositional choice in Song Books as revealed by the sketches, in so doing exploring themes of duality in Cage’s pursuit of “poetry as I need it” in the music of Erik Satie, the words of Henry David Thoreau, and in the imitation game that he devises to connect them with one another.

Specimen Collectors

This chapter examines the early history of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology and broader conversations about the representation of the natural world as fixed and stable. While the museum’s founder, Louis Agassiz, emphasized the value of preserved specimens to research and teaching, many collectors and writers questioned such practices. After donating turtles to the museum, Henry David Thoreau contemplated the ethical and scientific implications of freezing nature for extended study. In children’s fiction, Louisa May Alcott emphasized the relationship between collecting specimens and moral order, while highlighting the growing gendered divide between scientific practice in the museum and the parlor. And in philosophical writings, William James drew on classification to consider more flexible possibilities to fixed theories. These accounts show how writers sought to promote a deeper understanding of flux and change both within the museum and beyond.

Meteorology and Metaphor

Chapter seven explores the Meghadūta’s ability to depict figurative scenes that are simultaneously accurate in their description of the natural world. Nature is not seen as a backdrop to the human drama, but as an integral part of it. The dynamics of Kālidasa’s landscape are compared to the verses of William Blake and the landscapes of Henry David Thoreau and Ann Dillard. The “fulcrum of loka” (meaning both “place” and “people” in Sanskrit) shows just how multivalent the landscape of the Meghadūta is. Examples are given, as in the Cloud’s visit to the divine abode of Śiva, in which the trees are upraised arms, and the red twilight hue makes the Cloud (thundering as a drum) resemble the god’s red elephant hide drum.