著者

浅井 千晶 Chiaki Asai 千里金蘭大学 生活科学部

出版者

千里金蘭大学

雑誌

千里金蘭大学紀要 (ISSN:13496859)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2, pp.31-40,

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Although Rachel Carson (1907-64) is now remembered largely for Silent Spring (1962), which exposed the dangers of pesticides, this book was preceded by three best-sellers about the ocean environment : Under the Sea Wind (1941), The Sea Around Us (1951), and The Edge of the Sea (1955). Carson always had a great appreciation for the natural world. She spent a great deal of her childhood exploring the woods on her family's property and enjoyed watching birds, insects and flowers. Remarkably, it was the ocean that most strongly attracted Carson, even though she lived far away from the Atlantic coast and had never visited the ocean as a child. She also developed a love of books and read every book she could find about the ocean. Through reading poems of Swinburne, Masefield and other poets, Carson formed an attachment to the traditional romantic image of ocean as ultimate sanctuary. It was some lines from "Locksley Hall" by Alfred Lord Tennyson that convinced Carson of her destiny. Later in her life she wrote, "I can still remember my intense emotional response as that line spoke to something within me seeming to tell me that my path led to the sea-which then I had never seen-and that my own destiny was somehow linked with the sea". Carson is a talented scientist and exceptional writer who kept her "Sense of Wonder" throughout her life. Carson's life and work tell us the importance of a vivid imagination and a strong will to go his/her chosen road.