Okay I haven't enough words to express my gratitude towards Henry David Thoreau.

The entire year (and especially Term 3) for Lit so far has been filled with freaky monsters, emoing and nature-worshipping by the British Romantics (they couldn't even come across natural scenery without waxing lyrical about the ABSENCE of civilisation, instead of the beauty in front of them). Blake was, at least, reasonably interesting especially when his poems had an underlying message and a cause.

Wordsworth, on the other hand, was profoundly boring. Oh man. I have no idea how we managed to haul our butts through around 2 weeks of Wordsworth (I think) without dying. Call it the tenacity of RALA. Wordsworth is such a SELF-INDULGENT EMO. I can just imagine this happening to Wordsworth:

Wordsworth's Thoughts On Coming Upon A Lovely Forest:
'Sigh it's a forest. The absence of people feels so restful. Dorothy! Where's Dorothy?! I need to dedicate a poem to her so that I won't look like a nutcase emoing by himself. Ah there you are, Dorothy. Sister, dear Sister! My dear, dear Sister! How I have changed since the last time I came upon such a forest! For the last time I chanc'd upon this lovely glade, I was but seven, a young boy with glad animal movements and in complete harmony with nature...DAMN, I NEED TO FEEL YOUNG AGAIN. But I can never be the annoying brat I once was, so let me settle for making others emo by ruining the landscape with bad nostalgia. Yay.'

And that, thankfully, was when Thoreau came into the picture. (Well, not really, seeing as the slightly-suicidal-but-more-interesting female Romantics came first, but I don't have a quarrel with them, so.)

His Civil Disobedience is AWESOME. My love-hate relationship with it can be likened to, um, the Twilight love story arc! You know, when Edward Cullen is repelled by Bella's tastiness at first, but later he tells her "I was tired of avoiding you" or something. I was trying my best to not get sucked in by Thoreau's logic, but it's really...attractive. Or in bimbospeak, hot.

Link to the original essay here. He's really cool, but you need to get past the big words first. I shan't analyse it here - it'd be spoilering everyone. I love his account of his night in jail and his super neat roommate :D

Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching my father attended,
but never I myself. "Pay," it said, "or be locked up in the jail." I declined to pay. But, unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest
the schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its tax bill, and have the State to back its demand, as well as the Church.
However, at the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in writing: "Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I
have not joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it. The State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know
where to find such a complete list.

I have paid no poll tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet
thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some
way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone
woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.

-- Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau

Yeah see. He is TOO COOL TO BE TRUE. I am infinitely glad that Dr S chose to put American Lit into the RALA curriculum or I'd never survive the year. The Americans don't whine and bitch; they actually Do. Good for them.