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Thoreau, Moralist of The Picturesque (PMLA, xlvii, 3 [Sept., 1932] 864–889)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Extract

The facts presented by Mr. William Templeman in his article Thoreau, Moralist of the Picturesque are undoubtedly correct: many of his deductions from these facts, however, appear to me to be inconclusive. The reason these deductions are inconclusive is, I think, due to a failure on his part to define the terms, or when once defined, to adhere to his definitions. In the development of his material he wavers between two definitions of “picturesque,” although he makes it clear at the outset which definition he has decided upon. The “picturesque,” states Mr. Templeman in the opening paragraph of his article, “may be defined as that particular kind of beauty, especially landscape beauty, which would look well in a picture.” No one would quarrel with this definition. But when he adds that the definition “would be clearer if the type of picture were specified,” Mr. Templeman lays himself open to the charge of not understanding Gilpin's term “picturesque beauty,” a term rightly thought by Gilpin to be a phrase “little understood.” It is quite clear that Gilpin meant any scene “forming, or fitted to form, a picture,” and not the more restricted meaning of the term: “possessing quaint, rugged, or homely charm, or unique or vivid suggestiveness, as distinguished from beauty or sublimity.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , September 1934 , pp. 971 - 974
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1934

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References

1 PMLA, xlvii, p. 864.

2 Webster's New International Dictionary. See under “picturesque.”

3 I assume the “æsthetic faculties” to include both emotional and intellectual elements, the intellectual elements being not the least.

4 The earliest mention of Wordsworth is January 2, 1842; that of Gilpin, April 1, 1852. I am certain he was acquainted with Wordsworth before this time.

5 The Writings of Thoreau, Edited by Bradford Torrey, 20 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Co.: 1906), vii, 407–408. (1845–47).

6 The italics are mine.

7 Works, op. cit., p. 431.

8 The Prelude was not published until 1851.

9 Quoted by Mr. Templeman on p. 869 of his article.