Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)[1] was an American ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language author, poet A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary greatly in different cultures and time periods, naturalist Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards the observational than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research that is published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, Natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or, tax resister Tax resistance can be a form of conscientious objection . Tax resistance can also be a variety of protest, or a technique of nonviolent resistance (for example, in India’s campaign for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi), development critic They say such concepts make the life of primitive or alternative societies look misleadingly dull to modern people.[citation needed] Modern societies apply subjective standards for welfare universally and judge other societies by them, for example, greater longevity is seen as an objectively good thing. Development critics often regard attempts to, surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the surface of the Earth, and they are often used to establish land maps and boundaries for ownership or governmental purposes, historian A historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time. If the individual is concerned with events preceding written history, the, philosopher Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the, and leading transcendentalist Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. It is sometimes called American transcendentalism to distinguish it from other uses of the word transcendental. Transcendentalism began as a protest against the general state of culture and. He is best known for his book Walden Walden is an American book written by noted Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, and manual for self reliance, a reflection upon simple living Simple living is a lifestyle characterized by consuming only that which is required to sustain life. Adherents may choose simple living for a variety of personal reasons, such as spirituality, health, increase in 'quality time' for family and friends, reducing their personal ecological footprint, stress reduction, personal taste or frugality. E. F in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience Civil Disobedience is an essay by Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. It argues that people should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his, an argument for individual resistance to civil government Civil disobedience is the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is usually, but not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. In its most nonviolent form it could be said that it is compassion in the form of respectful disagreement. One of its in moral opposition to an unjust state.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history Nature writing is generally defined as nonfiction prose writing about the natural environment. Nature writing often draws heavily on scientific information and facts about the natural world; at the same time, it is frequently written in the first person and incorporates personal observations of and philosophical reflections upon nature and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology Ecology is the scientific study of the distributions, abundance and relations of organisms and their interactions with the environment. Ecology includes the study of plant and animal populations, plant and animal communities and ecosystems. Ecosystems describe the web or network of relations among organisms at different scales of organization and environmental history Environmental history is the study of human interaction with the natural world over time. Historians have tended to treat nature — when they treat it at all — as the setting for history, rather than a participant or active agent of change. Environmental history is history written with the acknowledgment that we shape our environment and it, two sources of modern day environmentalism Environmentalism is a broad philosophy and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the state of the environment. Environmentalism and environmental concerns are often represented by the color green. His literary A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others. Where there is a strong divergence, the language is said to exhibit diglossia style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic A symbol is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On maps, crossed sabres may indicate a battlefield. Numerals are symbols for numbers . All language consists of symbols meanings, and historical lore; while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity Asceticism describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals. Some forms of Christianity (see especially: Monastic life) and the Indian religions (including yoga) teach that salvation and liberation involve a process of mind-body transformation, and "Yankee" love of practical detail.[2] He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time imploring one to abandon waste and illusion An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people. Illusions may occur with more of the human senses than vision, but visual illusions, optical illusions, are the most well known and understood. The in order to discover life's true essential needs.[2]

He was a lifelong abolitionist Abolitionism was a movement in western Europe and the Americas to end the slave trade and set slaves free. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man, and Quaker and other evangelical religious groups condemned it as un-Christian, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law The fugitive slave laws were laws passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another or into a public territory while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips Wendell Phillips was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, and orator. He was an exceptional orator and agitator, advocate and lawyer, writer and debater and defending abolitionist John Brown John Brown was an American abolitionist, and folk hero who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to end all slavery. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859. Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is usually, but not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. In its most nonviolent form it could be said that it is compassion in the form of respectful disagreement. One of its influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лeв Никола́евич Толсто́й​ , Russian pronunciation: [lʲov nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ tɐlˈstoj]; September 9 [O.S. August 28] 1828 – November 20 [O.S. November 7] 1910), was a Russian writer widely regarded as among the greatest of novelists. His masterpieces War and, Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Hindi: मोहनदास करमचंद गाँधी, Gujarati: મોહનદાસ કરમચંદ ગાંધી, pronounced [moːɦən̪d̪aːs kərəmʨən̪d̪ ɡaːn̪d̪ʱiː] ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States, and he has become a human rights icon: King is recognized as a martyr by two Christian churches. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights

Thoreau is sometimes cited as an individualist anarchist Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and their will over any kinds of external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a group of individualistic philosophies.[3] Though Civil Disobedience calls for improving rather than abolishing government – "I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government"[4] – the direction of this improvement aims at anarchism: "'That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."[4]

Contents

Early life and education

He was born David Henry Thoreau[5] in Concord, Massachusetts Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2000 Census, the town population was about 17,000. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature. Concord also has two state prisons within its borders, to John Thoreau (a pencil maker) and Cynthia Dunbar. His paternal grandfather was of French origin and was born in Jersey The Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands which are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and other rocks and reefs. Together with the Bailiwick of Guernsey, it.[6] His maternal grandfather, Asa Dunbar, led Harvard's Harvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a member of the Ivy League. Established in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the first corporation chartered in the United States and oldest institution of higher learning in the United States 1766 student "Butter Rebellion",[7] the first recorded student protest in the Colonies.[8] David Henry was named after a recently deceased paternal uncle, David Thoreau. He did not become "Henry David" until after college, although he never petitioned to make a legal name change.[9] He had two older siblings, Helen and John Jr., and a younger sister, Sophia.[10] Thoreau's birthplace still exists on Virginia Road in Concord and is currently the focus of preservation efforts. The house is original, but it now stands about 100 yards away from its first site.

Portrait of Thoreau from 1854

Amos Bronson Alcott Amos Bronson Alcott was an American teacher, writer and philosopher who left a legacy of forward-thinking social ideas and whose status as a well-publicized figure from the 1830s to the 1880s stemmed from his founding of two short-lived projects, an unconventional school and an utopian community known as "Fruitlands", as well as from his and Thoreau's aunt each wrote that "Thoreau" is pronounced like the word "thorough", whose standard American pronunciation rhymes with "furrow".[11] In appearance he was homely, with a nose that he called "my most prominent feature."[12] Of his face, Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hathorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and Elizabeth Clarke Manning Hathorne. He later changed his name to "Hawthorne", adding a "w" to dissociate from relatives including John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials. Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College, was elected wrote: "[Thoreau] is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior. But his ugliness is of an honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes him much better than beauty."[13] Thoreau also wore a neck-beard for many years, which he insisted many women found attractive[14]. However, Louisa May Alcott Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women, written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts and published in 1868. This novel is loosely based on her childhood experiences with her three sisters mentioned to Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid-1800s. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society that Thoreau's facial hair "will most assuredly deflect amorous advances and preserve the man's virtue in perpetuity."[15]

Thoreau studied at Harvard University between 1833 and 1837. He lived in Hollis Hall and took courses in rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of using language to communicate effectively. It involves three audience appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos, as well as the five canons of rhetoric: invention or discovery, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Along with grammar and logic or dialectic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. From ancient, classics, philosophy, mathematics, and science. A legend proposes that Thoreau refused to pay the five-dollar fee for a Harvard diploma. In fact, the master's degree he declined to purchase had no academic merit: Harvard College offered it to graduates "who proved their physical worth by being alive three years after graduating, and their saving, earning, or inheriting quality or condition by having Five Dollars to give the college."[16] His comment was: "Let every sheep keep its own skin",[17] a reference to the tradition of diplomas being written on sheepskin Sheepskin is the hide of a sheep, sometimes also called lambskin. Unlike common leather, sheepskin is tanned with the fleece intact, as in a pelt vellum Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used. The manufacture involves the cleaning, bleaching, stretching on a frame, and scraping.

Return to Concord: 1837–1841

The traditional professions open to college graduates: law, the church, business, medicine; failed to interest Thoreau [18]:25 So he took a leave of absence and during that leave of absence from Harvard in 1835, Thoreau taught school in Canton, Massachusetts Canton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 20,775 at the 2000 census. Canton is part of Greater Boston, about 15 miles southwest of downtown Boston. After he graduated in 1837, he joined the faculty of the Concord public school, but resigned after a few weeks rather than administer corporal punishment Corporal punishment is the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable. The term usually refers to methodically striking the offender with an implement, whether in judicial, domestic, or educational settings.[18]:25 He and his brother John then opened a grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally schools teaching classical languages but more recently academically-oriented types of secondary school in Concord in 1838 called Concord Academy.[18]:25 They introduced several progressive concepts, including nature walks and visits to local shops and businesses. The school ended when John became fatally ill from tetanus Tetanus is a medical condition characterized by a prolonged contraction of skeletal muscle fibres. The primary symptoms are caused by tetanospasmin, a neurotoxin produced by the Gram-positive, obligate anaerobic bacterium Clostridium tetani. Infection generally occurs through wound contamination and often involves a cut or deep puncture wound. As in 1842[19] after cutting himself while shaving. He died in his brother Henry's arms.[20]

Upon graduation Thoreau returned home to Concord, where he met Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid-1800s. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society. Emerson took a paternal and at times patronizing interest in Thoreau, advising the young man and introducing him to a circle of local writers and thinkers, including Ellery Channing, Margaret Fuller Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli, commonly known as Margaret Fuller, was an American journalist, critic, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was the first full-time female book reviewer in journalism. Her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century is considered the first major feminist work in the United, Bronson Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne and his son Julian Hawthorne Julian Hawthorne was an American writer and journalist, the son of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody. He wrote numerous poems, novels, short stories, mystery/detective fiction, essays, travel books, biographies and histories. As a journalist he reported on the Indian Famine for Cosmopolitan magazine, and the Spanish-American War for, who was a boy at the time.

Emerson urged Thoreau to contribute essays and poems to a quarterly periodical, The Dial The Dial was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the chief publication of the Transcendentalists. In the 1880s it was revived as a political magazine. From 1920 to 1929 it was an influential outlet for Modernist literature in English, and Emerson lobbied editor Margaret Fuller to publish those writings. Thoreau's first essay published there was Aulus Persius Flaccus, an essay on the playwright of the same name, published in The Dial The Dial was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the chief publication of the Transcendentalists. In the 1880s it was revived as a political magazine. From 1920 to 1929 it was an influential outlet for Modernist literature in English in July 1840.[21] It consisted of revised passages from his journal, which he had begun keeping at Emerson's suggestion. The first journal entry on October 22, 1837, reads, "'What are you doing now?' he asked. 'Do you keep a journal?' So I make my first entry today."

Thoreau was a philosopher of nature and its relation to the human condition. In his early years he followed Transcendentalism Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. It is sometimes called American transcendentalism to distinguish it from other uses of the word transcendental. Transcendentalism began as a protest against the general state of culture and, a loose and eclectic idealist philosophy advocated by Emerson, Fuller, and Alcott. They held that an ideal spiritual state transcends, or goes beyond, the physical and empirical, and that one achieves that insight via personal intuition rather than religious doctrine. In their view, Nature is the outward sign of inward spirit, expressing the "radical correspondence of visible things and human thoughts," as Emerson wrote in Nature (1836).

1967 U.S. postage stamp honoring Thoreau

On April 18, 1841, Thoreau moved into the Emerson house.[22] There, from 1841–1844, he served as the children's tutor, editorial assistant, and repair man/gardener. For a few months in 1843, he moved to the home of William Emerson on Staten Island,[23] and tutored the family sons while seeking contacts among literary men and journalists in the city who might help publish his writings, including his future literary representative Horace Greeley.[24]:68

Thoreau returned to Concord and worked in his family's pencil factory, which he continued to do for most of his adult life. He rediscovered the process to make a good pencil out of inferior graphite by using clay as the binder; this invention improved upon graphite found in New Hampshire and bought in 1821 by relative Charles Dunbar. (The process of mixing graphite and clay, known as the Conté process, was patented by Nicolas-Jacques Conté in 1795). His other source had been Tantiusques, an Indian operated mine in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Later, Thoreau converted the factory to produce plumbago (graphite), which was used to ink typesetting machines.[25]

Once back in Concord, Thoreau went through a restless period. In April 1844 he and his friend Edward Hoar accidentally set a fire that consumed 300 acres (1.2 km2) of Walden Woods.[26] He spoke often of finding a farm to buy or lease, which he felt would give him a means to support himself while also providing enough solitude to write his first book[citation needed].

Civil Disobedience and the Walden years: 1845–1849

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Thoreau embarked on a two-year experiment in simple living on July 4, 1845, when he moved to a small, self-built house on land owned by Emerson in a second-growth forest around the shores of Walden Pond. The house was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from his family home.[citation needed]

On July 24 or July 25, 1846, Thoreau ran into the local tax collector, Sam Staples, who asked him to pay six years of delinquent poll taxes. Thoreau refused because of his opposition to the Mexican-American War and slavery, and he spent a night in jail because of this refusal. (The next day Thoreau was freed, against his wishes, when his aunt paid his taxes.[27]) The experience had a strong impact on Thoreau. In January and February 1848, he delivered lectures on "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government"[28] explaining his tax resistance at the Concord Lyceum. Bronson Alcott attended the lecture, writing in his journal on January 26:

Heard Thoreau's lecture before the Lyceum on the relation of the individual to the State– an admirable statement of the rights of the individual to self-government, and an attentive audience. His allusions to the Mexican War, to Mr. Hoar's expulsion from Carolina, his own imprisonment in Concord Jail for refusal to pay his tax, Mr. Hoar's payment of mine when taken to prison for a similar refusal, were all pertinent, well considered, and reasoned. I took great pleasure in this deed of Thoreau's.
—Bronson Alcott, Journals (1938)[29]

Thoreau revised the lecture into an essay entitled Resistance to Civil Government (also known as Civil Disobedience). In May 1849 it was published by Elizabeth Peabody in the Aesthetic Papers. Thoreau had taken up a version of Percy Shelley's principle in the political poem The Mask of Anarchy (1819), that Shelley begins with the powerful images of the unjust forms of authority of his time – and then imagines the stirrings of a radically new form of social action.[30]

At Walden Pond, he completed a first draft of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, an elegy to his brother, John, that described their 1839 trip to the White Mountains. Thoreau did not find a publisher for this book and instead printed 1,000 copies at his own expense, though fewer than 300 were sold.[22]:234 Thoreau self-published on the advice of Emerson, using Emerson's own publisher, Munroe, who did little to publicize the book. Its failure put Thoreau into debt that took years to pay off, and Emerson's flawed advice caused a schism between the friends that never entirely healed.[citation needed]

In August 1846, Thoreau briefly left Walden to make a trip to Mount Katahdin in Maine, a journey later recorded in "Ktaadn," the first part of The Maine Woods.

Thoreau left Walden Pond on September 6, 1847.[22]:244 Over several years, he worked to pay off his debts and also continuously revised his manuscript for what, in 1854, he would publish as Walden, or Life in the Woods, recounting the two years, two months, and two days he had spent at Walden Pond. The book compresses that time into a single calendar year, using the passage of four seasons to symbolize human development. Part memoir and part spiritual quest, Walden at first won few admirers, but today critics[who?] regard it as a classic American work that explores natural simplicity, harmony, and beauty as models for just social and cultural conditions.

Later years: 1851–1862

Henry David Thoreau, taken August 1861

In 1851, Thoreau became increasingly fascinated with natural history and travel/expedition narratives. He read avidly on botany and often wrote observations on this topic into his journal. He admired William Bartram, and Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. He kept detailed observations on Concord's nature lore, recording everything from how the fruit ripened over time to the fluctuating depths of Walden Pond and the days certain birds migrated. The point of this task was to "anticipate" the seasons of nature, in his words.[31]

He became a land surveyor and continued to write increasingly detailed natural history observations about the 26 square miles (67 km2) township in his journal, a two-million word document he kept for 24 years. He also kept a series of notebooks, and these observations became the source for Thoreau's late natural history writings, such as Autumnal Tints, The Succession of Trees, and Wild Apples, an essay bemoaning the destruction of indigenous and wild apple species.

Until the 1970s, literary critics[who?] dismissed Thoreau's late pursuits as amateur science and philosophy. With the rise of environmental history and ecocriticism, several new readings[who?] of this matter began to emerge, showing Thoreau to be both a philosopher and an analyst of ecological patterns in fields and woodlots. For instance, his late essay, "The Succession of Forest Trees," shows that he used experimentation and analysis to explain how forests regenerate after fire or human destruction, through dispersal by seed-bearing winds or animals.

He traveled to Quebec once, Cape Cod four times, and Maine three times; these landscapes inspired his "excursion" books, A Yankee in Canada, Cape Cod, and The Maine Woods, in which travel itineraries frame his thoughts about geography, history and philosophy. Other travels took him southwest to Philadelphia and New York City in 1854, and west across the Great Lakes region in 1861, visiting Niagara Falls, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Mackinac Island.[32] Although provincial in his physical travels, he was extraordinarily well-read and vicariously a world traveler. He obsessively devoured all the first-hand travel accounts available in his day, at a time when the last unmapped regions of the earth were being explored. He read Magellan and Cook, the arctic explorers Franklin, Mackenzie and Parry, Darwin's account of his voyage on the Beagle, Livingstone and Burton on Africa, Lewis and Clark; and hundreds of lesser-known works by explorers and literate travelers.[33] Astonishing amounts of global reading fed his endless curiosity about the peoples, cultures, religions and natural history of the world, and left its traces as commentaries in his voluminous journals. He processed everything he read, in the local laboratory of his Concord experience. Among his famous aphorisms is his advice to "Live at home like a traveler."

After John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, many prominent voices in the abolitionist movement distanced themselves from Brown, or damned him with faint praise. Thoreau was disgusted by this, and he composed a speech – A Plea for Captain John Brown – which was uncompromising in its defense of Brown and his actions. Thoreau's speech proved persuasive: first the abolitionist movement began to accept Brown as a martyr, and by the time of the American Civil War entire armies of the North were literally singing Brown's praises. As a contemporary biographer of John Brown put it: "If, as Alfred Kazin suggests, without John Brown there would have been no Civil War, we would add that without the Concord Transcendentalists, John Brown would have had little cultural impact."[34]

Death

Thoreau family graves at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Thoreau contracted tuberculosis in 1835 and suffered from it sporadically afterwards. In 1859, following a late night excursion to count the rings of tree stumps during a rain storm, he became ill with bronchitis. His health declined over three years with brief periods of remission, until he eventually became bedridden. Recognizing the terminal nature of his disease, Thoreau spent his last years revising and editing his unpublished works, particularly The Maine Woods and Excursions, and petitioning publishers to print revised editions of A Week and Walden. He also wrote letters and journal entries until he became too weak to continue. His friends were alarmed at his diminished appearance and were fascinated by his tranquil acceptance of death. When his aunt Louisa asked him in his last weeks if he had made his peace with God, Thoreau responded: "I did not know we had ever quarreled."[35]

Aware he was dying, Thoreau's last words were "Now comes good sailing", followed by two lone words, "moose" and "Indian".[36] He died on May 6, 1862 at age 44. Bronson Alcott planned the service and read selections from Thoreau's works, and Channing presented a hymn.[37] Emerson wrote the eulogy spoken at his funeral.[38] Originally buried in the Dunbar family plot, he and members of his immediate family were eventually moved to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (N42° 27' 53.7" W71° 20' 33") in Concord, Massachusetts.

Thoreau's friend Ellery Channing published his first biography, Thoreau the Poet-Naturalist, in 1873, and Channing and another friend Harrison Blake edited some poems, essays, and journal entries for posthumous publication in the 1890s. Thoreau's journals, which he often mined for his published works but which remained largely unpublished at his death, were first published in 1906 and helped to build his modern reputation. A new, expanded edition of the journals is underway, published by Princeton University Press. Today, Thoreau is regarded[who?] as one of the foremost American writers, both for the modern clarity of his prose style and the prescience of his views on nature and politics. His memory is honored by the international Thoreau Society.

Beliefs

Thoreau memorial at Library Way, New York City
"Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind." — Thoreau [39]

Thoreau was an early advocate of recreational hiking and canoeing, of conserving natural resources on private land, and of preserving wilderness as public land. Thoreau was also one of the first American supporters of Darwin's theory of evolution. He was not a strict vegetarian, though he said he preferred that diet[40] and advocated it as a means of self-improvement. He wrote in Walden: "The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth."[41]

Thoreau neither rejected civilization nor fully embraced wilderness. Instead he sought a middle ground, the pastoral realm that integrates both nature and culture. His philosophy required that he be a didactic arbitration between the wilderness he based so much on and the spreading mass of North American humanity. He decried the latter endlessly but felt the teachers need to be close to those who needed to hear what he wanted to tell them. He was in many ways a 'visible saint', a point of contact with the wilds, even if the land he lived on had been gifted to him by Emerson and was far from cut-off. The wildness he enjoyed was the nearby swamp or forest, and he preferred "partially cultivated country." His idea of being "far in the recesses of the wilderness" of Maine was to "travel the logger's path and the Indian trail," but he also hiked on pristine untouched land. In the essay "Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher" Roderick Nash writes: "Thoreau left Concord in 1846 for the first of three trips to northern Maine. His expectations were high because he hoped to find genuine, primeval America. But contact with real wilderness in Maine affected him far differently than had the idea of wilderness in Concord. Instead of coming out of the woods with a deepened appreciation of the wilds, Thoreau felt a greater respect for civilization and realized the necessity of balance."

On alcohol, Thoreau wrote: "I would fain keep sober always... I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor... Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?"[41]

Influence

A bust of Thoreau from the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at the Bronx Community College

Thoreau's writings influenced many public figures. Political leaders and reformers like Mahatma Gandhi, President John F. Kennedy, civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, and Russian author Leo Tolstoy all spoke of being strongly affected by Thoreau's work, particularly Civil Disobedience. So did many artists and authors including Edward Abbey, Willa Cather, Marcel Proust, William Butler Yeats, Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair,[42] E. B. White, Lewis Mumford [43], Frank Lloyd Wright, Alexander Posey [44] and Gustav Stickley.[45] . Thoreau also influenced naturalists like John Burroughs, John Muir, E. O. Wilson, Edwin Way Teale, Joseph Wood Krutch, B. F. Skinner, David Brower and Loren Eiseley, whom Publisher's Weekly called "the modern Thoreau." [46] Anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman also appreciated Thoreau and referred to him as "the greatest American anarchist." English writer Henry Stephens Salt wrote a biography of Thoreau in 1890,which popularized Thoreau's ideas in Britain: George Bernard Shaw, Edward Carpenter and Robert Blatchford were among those who became Thoreau enthusiasts as a result of Salt's advocacy. [47]

Mahatma Gandhi first read Walden in 1906 while working as a civil rights activist in Johannesburg, South Africa. He told American reporter Webb Miller, "[Thoreau's] ideas influenced me greatly. I adopted some of them and recommended the study of Thoreau to all of my friends who were helping me in the cause of Indian Independence. Why I actually took the name of my movement from Thoreau's essay 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,' written about 80 years ago."[48]

Martin Luther King, Jr. noted in his autobiography that his first encounter with the idea of non-violent resistance was reading "On Civil Disobedience" in 1944 while attending Morehouse College. He wrote in his autobiography that it was

Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.

I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.[49]

The University of Michigan's New England Literature Program is an experiential literature and writing program run through the university's Department of English Language and Literature which was started in the 1970s by professors Alan Howes and Walter Clark. Howes and Clark called upon Thoreauvian ideals of nature, independence and community to create an academic program modeled after Thoreau's experiment at Walden Pond. Today, students at NELP study Thoreau's work – as well as that of several other New England writers from the 19th and 20th centuries – in relative isolation on Sebago Lake in Raymond, Maine.

American psychologist B. F. Skinner wrote that he carried a copy of Thoreau's Walden with him in his youth.[50] and, in 1945, wrote Walden Two, a fictional utopia about 1,000 members of a community living together inspired by the life of Thoreau.[51]

Thoreau inspired children's book author and illustrator D.B. Johnson to create a series of picture books based on Thoreau. The first book Henry Hikes to Fitchburg has become a bestseller.[citation needed]

Thoreau and his fellow Transcendentalists from Concord were a major inspiration of the composer Charles Ives. The 4th movement of the Concord Sonata for piano (with a part for flute, Thoreau's instrument) is a character picture and he also set Thoreau's words.[52]

Anarchism

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be and removed. (April 2010)

Anarchism started to have an ecological view mainly in the writings of Thoreau. In his book Walden "Many have seen in Thoreau one of the precursors of ecologism and anarcho-primitivism represented today in John Zerzan. For George Woodcock this attitude can be also motivated by certain idea of resistance to progress and of rejection of the growing materialism which is the nature of american society in the mid XIX century."[53] Zerzan included Thoreau's text "Excursions" (1863) in his edited compilation titled Against civilization: Readings and reflections from 1999.[54] Anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman also appreciated Thoreau and referred to him as "the greatest American anarchist."

Thoreau was an important influence on late 19th century anarchist naturism, the combination of anarchist and naturist philosophies.[55][56] Mainly it had importance within individualist anarchist circles[57][58] in Spain,[55][56][57] France,[57][59] and Portugal.[60]

Critique

Henry David Thoreau
Core works and topics Civil Disobedience Herald of Freedom The Last Days of John Brown Life Without Principle Paradise (to be) Regained A Plea for Captain John Brown Reform and the Reformers Remarks After the Hanging of John Brown The Service Sir Walter Raleigh Slavery in Massachusetts Thomas Carlyle and His Works Walden A Walk to Wachusett A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers Wendell Phillips Before the Concord Lyceum The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau Thoreau Society
Related topics Abolitionism · Anarchism Anarchism in the United States Civil disobedience Concord, Massachusetts Conscientious objection Direct action · Ecology Environmentalism History of tax resistance Individualist anarchism John Brown · Lyceum movement Nonviolent resistance Ralph Waldo Emerson Simple living · Tax resistance Tax resisters · Transcendentalism The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail Walden Pond

Thoreau's ideas were not universally applauded by some of his contemporaries in literary circles.

Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson judged Thoreau's endorsement of living alone in natural simplicity, apart from modern society, to be a mark of effeminacy:

...Thoreau's content and ecstasy in living was, we may say, like a plant that he had watered and tended with womanish solicitude; for there is apt to be something unmanly, something almost dastardly, in a life that does not move with dash and freedom, and that fears the bracing contact of the world. In one word, Thoreau was a skulker. He did not wish virtue to go out of him among his fellow-men, but slunk into a corner to hoard it for himself. He left all for the sake of certain virtuous self-indulgences.[61]

Poet John Greenleaf Whittier detested what he deemed to be the message of Walden, decreeing that Thoreau wanted man to "lower himself to the level of a woodchuck and walk on four legs." He went further to castigate the work as "very wicked and heathenish", remarking "I prefer walking on two legs."[62]

In response to such criticisms, English novelist George Eliot, writing for the Westminster Review, characterized such critics as uninspired and narrow-minded:

People—very wise in their own eyes—who would have every man's life ordered according to a particular pattern, and who are intolerant of every existence the utility of which is not palpable to them, may pooh-pooh Mr. Thoreau and this episode in his history, as unpractical and dreamy.[63]

Modern historian Richard Zacks pokes fun at Thoreau, writing:

Thoreau's 'Walden, or Life in the Woods' deserves its status as a great American book but let it be known that Nature Boy went home on weekends to raid the family cookie jar. While living the simple life in the woods, Thoreau walked into nearby Concord, Mass., almost every day. And his mom, who lived less than two miles away, delivered goodie baskets filled with meals, pies and doughnuts every Saturday. The more one reads in Thoreau's unpolished journal of his stay in the woods, the more his sojourn resembles suburban boys going to their tree-house in the backyard and pretending they're camping in the heart of the jungle.[64]

Works

See also

References

  1. ^ Biography of Henry David Thoreau, American Poems (2000–2007 Gunnar Bengtsson).
  2. ^ a b Henry David Thoreau : A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers / Walden / The Maine Woods / Cape Cod, by Henry David Thoreau, Library of America, ISBN 0940450275
  3. ^ Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, edited by Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, Alvin Saunders Johnson, 1937, p. 12. Gross, David (ed.) The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals p. 8, ISBN 9781434805522 ("The Thoreau of these journals distrusted doctrine, and, though it is accurate I think to call him an anarchist, he was by no means doctrinaire in this either.")
  4. ^ a b Thoreau, H. D. Resistance to Civil Government
  5. ^ Nelson, Randy F. The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 51. ISBN 086576008X
  6. ^ Ancestors of Mary Ann Gillam and Stephen Old
  7. ^ History of the Fraternity System
  8. ^ Trivia-Library
  9. ^ Henry David Thoreau, Meet the Writers, Barnes & Noble.com
  10. ^ Biography of Henry David Thoreau, American Poems (2000–2007 Gunnar Bengtsson)
  11. ^ THUR-oh or Thor-OH? And How Do We Know? Thoreau Reader
  12. ^ Thoreau, H.D. Cape Cod
  13. ^ American Notebooks Nathaniel Hawthorne
  14. ^ Gilman, William, et al., The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson 16 vols. (Cambridge, Mass 1960-)
  15. ^ Gilman, William, et al., The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson 16 vols. (Cambridge, Mass 1960-)
  16. ^ "Thoreau's Diploma" American Literature Vol. 17, May 1945. 174–175.
  17. ^ Walter Harding, "Live Your Own Life", Geneseo Summer Compass, 4 June 1984. Accessed 2009-11-21.
  18. ^ a b c Robert Sattelmeyer, Thoreau's Reading: A Study in Intellectual History with bibliographical catalogue, Chapter 2, Princeton: Princeton University Press (1988).
  19. ^ Dean, Bradley P. "A Thoreau Chronology"
  20. ^ Woodlief, Ann "Henry David Thoreau"
  21. ^ "The Walden Woods Project".
  22. ^ a b c Cheever, Susan (2006). American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work. Detroit: Thorndike Press. Large print edition. p. 90. ISBN 078629521X.
  23. ^ Salt, H.S. (1890). The Life of Henry David Thoreau. London: Richard Bentley & Son. pp. p. 69.
  24. ^ F. B. Sanborn (ed.), The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, VI, Familiar Letters, (Chapter 1, Years of Discipline) Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co. (1906).
  25. ^ Conrad, Randall. (Fall 2005). "The Machine in the Wetland: Re-imagining Thoreau's Plumbago-Grinder". Thoreau Society Bulletin (253).
  26. ^ A Chronology of Thoreau's Life, with Events of the Times, The Thoreau Project, Calliope Film Resources, accessed 11 June 2007
  27. ^ Rosenwald, Lawrence. "The Theory, Practice & Influence of Thoreau's Civil Disobedience". William Cain, ed. A Historical Guide to Henry David Thoreau. Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2006.
  28. ^ Thoreau, H. D. letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson February 23, 1848
  29. ^ Alcott, Bronson. Journals. Boston: Little, Brown, 1938.
  30. ^ http://www.morrissociety.org/JWMS/SP94.10.4.Nichols.pdf
  31. ^ Henry David Thoreau, "Autumnal Tints", The Atlantic Monthly (October 1862) pp. 385–402. (Reprint. Accessed 2009-11-21.)
  32. ^ Henry David Thoreau, The Annotated Walden (1970), Philip Van Doren Stern, ed., pp. 96, 132
  33. ^ John Aldrich Christie, Thoreau as World Traveler, Columbia University Press (1965)
  34. ^ Reynolds, David S. John Brown, Abolitionist Knopf (2005), p. 4
  35. ^ Simon Critchley, The Book of Dead Philosophers, p. 181, New York: Random House (2009).
  36. ^ The Writer's Almanac
  37. ^ Packer, Barbara L. The Transcendentalists. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2007: 272. ISBN 9780820329581.
  38. ^ Emerson, Ralph Waldo Thoreau. The Atlantic August 1862.
  39. ^ Walden, or Life in the Woods (Chapter 1: "Economy")
  40. ^ Brooks, Van Wyck. The Flowering of New England. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1952. p. 310
  41. ^ a b Cheever, Susan (2006). American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work. Detroit: Thorndike Press. Large print edition. p. 241. ISBN 078629521X.
  42. ^ Maynard, W. Barksdale, Walden Pond: A History. Oxford University Press, 2005.(pg.265)
  43. ^ Mumford, Lewis, The Golden Day: A Study in American Experience and Culture. Boni and Liveright, 1926. (pp. 56–9)
  44. ^ Posey, Alexander. Lost Creeks: Collected Journals. (Edited by Matthew Wynn Sivils) Univerisity of Nebraska Press, 2009. (pg. 38)
  45. ^ Saunders, Barry. A Complex Fate: Gustav Stickley and the Craftsman Movement. Preservation Press, 1996. (pg. 4)
  46. ^ Kifer, Ken Analysis and Notes on Walden: Henry Thoreau's Text with Adjacent Thoreauvian Commentary
  47. ^ Hendrick, George and Oehlschlaeger,Fritz (eds.) Toward the Making of Thoreau's Modern Reputation, University of Illinois Press, 1979.
  48. ^ Miller, Webb. I Found No Peace. Garden City, 1938. 238–239
  49. ^ King, M.L. Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. chapter two
  50. ^ Skinner, B. F., A Matter of Consequences
  51. ^ Skinner, B. F., Walden Two (1948)
  52. ^ Burkholder, James Peter. Charles Ives and His World. Princeton University Press, 1996 (pp. 50–1)
  53. ^ This quote is not found in this ref.
  54. ^ Against civilization: Readings and reflections by John Zerzan (editor)
  55. ^ a b EL NATURISMO LIBERTARIO EN LA PENÍNSULA IBÉRICA (1890-1939) by Jose Maria Rosello
  56. ^ a b "Anarchism, Nudism, Naturism" by Carlos Ortega
  57. ^ a b c "LA INSUMISIÓN VOLUNTARIA. EL ANARQUISMO INDIVIDUALISTA ESPAÑOL DURANTE LA DICTADURA Y LA SEGUNDA REPÚBLICA (1923-1938)" by Xavier Diez
  58. ^ "Les anarchistes individualistes du début du siècle l'avaient bien compris, et intégraient le naturisme dans leurs préoccupations. Il est vraiment dommage que ce discours se soit peu à peu effacé, d'antan plus que nous assistons, en ce moment, à un retour en force du puritanisme (conservateur par essence).""Anarchisme et naturisme, aujourd'hui." by Cathy Ytak
  59. ^ Recension des articles de l'En-Dehors consacrés au naturisme et au nudisme
  60. ^ Freire, João. "Anarchisme et naturisme au Portugal, dans les années 1920" in Les anarchistes du Portugal. [Bibliographic data necessary for this ref.]
  61. ^ Stevenson, Robert Louis. "Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions". Cornhill Magazine. June 1880.
  62. ^ Wagenknecht, Edward. John Greenleaf Whittier: A Portrait in Paradox. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967: 112.
  63. ^ The New England Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Dec., 1933), pp. 733-746
  64. ^ Zacks, Richard. An Underground Education, Doubleday Publishing. 1997, p. 19.
  65. ^ The Landlord from Cornell University Library
  66. ^ A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers from Project Gutenberg
  67. ^ Aesthetic papers from the Internet Archive
  68. ^ Walking from Project Gutenberg
  69. ^ Wild Apples: The History of the Apple Tree from Project Gutenberg
  70. ^ Excursions from the Internet Archive
  71. ^ Life without Principle from Cornell University Library
  72. ^ Night and Moonlight from Cornell University Library
  73. ^ The Maine Woods from The Thoreau Reader
  74. ^ The Maine woods from The Internet Archive
  75. ^ Cape Cod from The Thoreau Reader
  76. ^ Letters to various persons from the Internet Archive
  77. ^ A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-slavery and reform papers from the Internet Archive
  78. ^ Summer: from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau from the Internet Archive
  79. ^ Winter : from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau from the Internet Archive
  80. ^ Autumn. From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau from the Internet Archive
  81. ^ Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau the Internet Archive
  82. ^ The first and last journeys of Thoreau : lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts Vol. 1 from the Internet Archive
  83. ^ The first and last journeys of Thoreau : lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts Vol. 2 from the Internet Archive
  84. ^ The Journal of Henry David Thoreau

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NAME Thoreau, Henry David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thoreau, David Henry
SHORT DESCRIPTION American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH Concord, Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1862
PLACE OF DEATH Concord, Massachusetts

Categories: 1817 births | 1862 deaths | 19th-century philosophers | American Unitarians | American abolitionists | American anarchists | American diarists | American environmentalists | American essayists | American naturalists | American nature writers | American philosophers | American poets | American political philosophers | American spiritual writers | American tax resisters | American travel writers | American vegetarians | Civil disobedience | Deaths from tuberculosis | Ecological succession | American people of French descent | Harvard University alumni | Henry David Thoreau | Individualist anarchists | Lecturers | Nature writers | People associated with Transcendentalism | People from Concord, Massachusetts | Scholars and leaders of nonviolence, or nonviolent resistance | Writers from Massachusetts

 

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How does Henry David Thoreau become an abolitionist?
Q. I'm doing an English project on Henry David Thoreau and I've been looking through many sites and books but I can't seem to find out how he became an abolitionist. For those who need to be more informed, he is an author and a political dissident in the 1800s (during the time of slavery).
Asked by Azn S - Sat Mar 15 21:54:11 2008 - - 1 Answers - 0 Comments

A. Thoreau was a transcendentalist first, abolitionist second. Read Walden's Pond on cliff notes to understand why he became who he was.
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