Biography
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts,
and spent most of his life in and around that town. Thoreau
was an outspoken abolitionist, and during his lifetime his
most widely read works were such antislavery tracts as Slavery
in Massachusetts and A Plea for Captain John Brown.
Most readers, though, remember Thoreau as a naturalist. His
most famous book, Walden (1854), records the two years
he spent living in a self-crafted cabin beside Emerson's Walden
Pond. The Walden experiment reflected the greater philosophy
of Thoreau's life: he believed that people should not be
driven by materialistic desires but should live according
to their needs, simplifying their life-styles rather than
earning money to support lavish and ostentatious show. Thoreau
worked from time to time in his father's pencil factory,
but the dust from the graphite aggravated Thoreau's tuberculosis,
and he died a few years after taking over the family business.
After his death, passages about nature were culled from his
journal writings and printed in magazines; the journals were
published as a whole in 1906. To this day, Thoreau remains
among the most important and challenging of American nature
writers, philosophers, and social critics.
Explorations
Walden (1854) is widely regarded (and taught) as
a sacrosanct text, an eloquent, detailed, passionate refusal
of materialism and of emerging American middle-class values
and a celebration of a rigorously simple life in harmony
with the natural world. While such readings are persuasive,
they can miss the playfulness and changefulness in the book
and the evolving consciousness that it chronicles. Thoreau
is a dynamic personality, not a curmudgeon, and Walden is
in part the story of a mind in motion.
1. Review the long paragraph starting at the bottom of NAAL 1.1939
("However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not
shun it and call it hard names"). Then turn to NAAL 1.1769
and review the two paragraphs beginning "I see young men,
my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms,
houses, barns, cattle . . ." What relationship do you observe
between these paragraphs? How would you compare their tone
and central themes?
2. In those opening paragraphs, Thoreau refers to the
New Testament as "an old book." How would you describe
his rhetorical strategy here? What kind of audience was
he writing to and for? What might the response be, and
how might that response work to Thoreau's advantage? Can
you find other moments in the opening chapters of Walden where
he uses a similar technique?
3. Throughout Walden, some of Thoreau's famous
wisecracks are about new technologies and communication
systems--newspapers, telegraphs, railroads. In what spirit
should we take these comments? Do you find any grain of
truth or usefulness in them, in the midst of the Information
Age?
4. Thoreau built his cabin on woods owned by Emerson;
he used manufactured tools, milled boards, and printed
books; he was only about a mile from the center of Concord
and came in frequently, not only to visit and talk with
his gifted neighbors but to dine with them and enjoy some
of the pleasures of town life. And eventually, as he tells
us, he left his cabin and moved back to Concord. Do these
facts compromise Walden? Why or why not?
Other sites to consult:
CyberSaunter's
Henry David Thoreau page. An excellent biographical
resource. Includes detailed information about Thoreau's
family and friends, his education, and his employment.
The
Transcendentalists: Henry David Thoreau.
A comprehensive Thoreau site with biographies, portraits,
quotations, online texts, criticism, a detailed bibliography,
and more.
Henry
David Thoreau page. Another Thoreau resource
with links to articles about Thoreau and his work;
online texts; journal entries by Thoreau and Ralph
Waldo Emerson recording their versions of an encounter
in 1853; and links to other Thoreau sites. (Site
maintained by Dirk H. Kelder.)
Thoreau
Ecology Hall of Fame. Extracts, a biography,
a bibliography, and an appreciation of Thoreau by
Ralph Waldo Emerson. Also includes a long list of
sites pertaining to Thoreau's life, his works, and
Walden Pond.
The
Writings of Henry D. Thoreau. A Web site
to accompany the project of the same name whose goal
is to produce a new, definitive edition of all of
Thoreau's works. Scroll down to "The Life and Times
of Henry D. Thoreau" and "Reflections on Walden" for
hypertextual overviews.
http://www.walden.org/: The Web site of three Thoreau-related
organizations, with information on his life and writings.
|
