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Can I read Thoreau's Fable of Inscribing on EtoBox?

Thoreau's Fable of Inscribing by Frederick Garber is a biography available to read on EtoBox.

What is Thoreau's Fable of Inscribing about?

Early in Thoreau's career, he became obsessed with the problem of getting to be at home in the world. This ambitious book relates that obsession to his way of fostering at-homeness: "inscribing" himself not only through words but through such occupations as the making of books, houses, and tracks in the woods. Frederick Garber reveals that a complex fable endemic in Thoreau and perceptible from his earliest major writings puts inscribing and the quest for at-homeness in terms of a search for a home of homes, a quest that Thoreau realized must be ultimately unsuccessful. Focusing on Thoreau's major works, particularly on A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Garber explores the rich intertextual dialogue arising from this fable and Thoreau's concerns about at-homeness and inscribing. Garber discloses Thoreau's conviction that human lives are radically open-ended, at least in terms of what we can know in the present. All our modes of inscribing are inadequate, even though we can glimpse the possibility of ultimate words and sentences saying all that ever needed to be said. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to

Who reads Thoreau's Fable of Inscribing?

It is typically read by self-directed learners exploring a subject in depth.

Common subject areas: history, science, philosophy, social sciences.

Author
Frederick Garber
Publisher
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press
Published
1991
Language
EN
ISBN
9780691068732
Category
biography
Subjects
Literary Criticism, Literary Fiction, Memoir
Rating
4 / 5 (3 ratings)
Updated
2026-03-14

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