HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862)
He went to Harvard College. He joint Emerson as his assistant for only two years. His friendship
with Emerson was a tragedy. Considered the practical man; the man who practiced the ideas of
Emerson. He was anti slavery.
He said the man should be retired in Nature. In 1845 he isolated from the rest of the world and
went to live in Walden, he lived there alone to proof that he could live without the external world,
he was self sufficient. Practical demonstration in Walden village. He experienced this
transcendental quality of God.
His best known novel was Wolden, a practical novel in which he stated his practical experience
at Walden point. His novel was published in 1884, the novel was done by the notes he took when
living in Wolden point. Within this novel, many aspects are written from his imagination. His
main intention was to persuade reader to his experience. He wanted to create a mystical language,
and with this to connect man with God and nature. Men and natural facts.
His second work was a short essay, his work was called “Civil Disobedience”; He made emphasis
on individual conscience that was his primary objective in this work, the individual conscience
was before any idea coming from the outside, the external world.
Literary quotation: “the only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what
I think right”
His first practical way of exposing his civil disobedience was rejecting to pay taxes.
He was “Self –reliant” he trusted only in himself. He considered men is alone, and his individual
conscience.
He considered that the society was oppressing the men, treated as machines.
The place where he was born, concord, was a gift so connect him with nature.
He came to the conviction and a dilemma of the mind and language.
Aspects of Wolden:
The main protagonist of Walden is far from civilization.
He invented the macrocosmic cabin.
Through the isolation, he explored the territory of the self.
He was interested in Buddhism.
