His%20life

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1817---1862
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His life

• 1. Born in Concord, Massachusetts, July 12, 1817
• 2. In Harvard College in 1833, and graduated in
  1837 as one of the honor students
• 3. Opened a school, where he taught with his
  brother John
• 4. 1839, made a trip on Concord and Merrimack
  rivers with John
• 5. Helped Emerson edit The Dial and tutored
  Emersons children
• 6. In March 1845 ( when 28)began to work on a
  cabin at Walden Pond, and on July 4, moved into
  the Walden cabin
• 7. 1846, arrested for nonpayment of poll tax
• 8. Published Walden on August 9, 1856
• 9. Met Walt Whitman in Brooklyn 1856
• 10. In 1860, contracted the cold that led to his
  fatal illness, and died in Concord on May 6, 1862
• 11.In 1906, 20 volumes of Thoreaus writings were
  published, including 14 volumes of his journal

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Why is Thoreau different from others?

• If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
  perhaps it is because he hears a different
  drummer. Let him step to the music which he
  hears, however measured or far away.
• --- Henry David
  Thoreau

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Henry David Thoreau, The Great

• 1. Dismissed as an idler, and a drifter and a
  minor writer and a wasted Harvard graduate, and
  almost forgotten in his day, and yet in our day,
  he is one of few writers who deserve the
  appellation great.
• 2. He put into practice of principles of plain
  living and high thinking.
• 3. His journal of nearly 7000 pages transcribed
  his daily thoughts, observations, readings and
  encounters with nature and men.

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Relationship with Emerson

• 14 years younger than Emerson
• Friendship bloomed in late 1830s, after Ts
  graduation from Harvard
• Throughout the 1840s, Emerson encouraged Thoreau
  as a writer, particularly praising his poetry and
  getting him started on the topic of Nature

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Relationship with Emerson

• Shared political attitudes about slavery
• Friendship cooled some in the 1850s, with T
  resenting Es patronage E critical of what he
  saw as Ts lack of ambition
• RWE delivered the eulogy at Ts funeral No
  truer American existed than Thoreau

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Walden Lake, where Thoreau found the real meaning
of life.
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A reproduction of the cabin where Thoreau lived
for two years and two months
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A modern reader of Thoreau in the historic cabin
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(No Transcript)
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The nameless and timeless Henry
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Beauty originates from simplicity.
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His major works

• 1.Walden , known for its modern style, simplicity
  of diction and figures of speech, has 200
  different editions and been translated into every
  major modern language.
• 2. Walden was revised 8 times, and is read as the
  19th century Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
• 3. Civil Disobedience is the result of his jailed
  experience in 1846, embodying the pioneering
  spirit of the American frontiersman and a
  development of the philosophy in the Declaration
  of Independence, having a great impact on Mahatma
  Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King.

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By working about six weeks in a year, I could
meet all the expenses of living.

• Growing his own food and building his own shelter
  gave him freedom to work productively as a writer
  and thinker
• Profound connection between self reliance,
  meaningful labor, and thought

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An age of social experimentation

• Like the 1960s, the 1840s saw a number of
  experiments with communes. Hawthorne lived for a
  time at Brook Farm, the Alcotts at Fruitlands.
• Ts stay at Walden Pond is a more solitary
  response to this same impulse towards social
  experimentation.

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I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter
friction to stop the machine.

• Civil Disobedience

• Henry David Thoreau

• While living at Walden Pond, T was arrested and
  briefly jailed for not paying his poll tax.
• His essay on the experience, Civil
  Disobedience, explores the question of what a
  person should do when he or she feels that his
  government is acting immorally.

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Crosspollination

• Like RWE, Thoreau avidly studied the Hindu
  scriptures of India.
• Mahatma Gandhi studied Thoreaus writings on
  civil disobedience as he led Indias struggle for
  independence.
• MLK based many of his ideas on nonviolent action
  on the work of Gandhi.