Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, in July 1817. This town lay some twenty-five miles inland from Boston andserved as a local market town.
As a boy Thoreau was often called uponto drive his mother's cows to and from their grazing pastures and developed an early love of solitude and communion with nature. Thoreau was subsequently supported by his older brother and sister, who were both schoolteachers, in being educated at Harvard. Whilst there Thoreau did not seem to be particularly academically brilliant he did; however, take on extra classes in science and in four European languages.After graduating in 1837 and into the early 1840s Thoreau was occupied as a schoolteacher and tutor. Thoreau actually took over management of Concord Academy in 1838 and subsequently introduced
As a boy Thoreau was often called uponto drive his mother's cows to and from their grazing pastures and developed an early love of solitude and communion with nature. Thoreau was subsequently supported by his older brother and sister, who were both schoolteachers, in being educated at Harvard. Whilst there Thoreau did not seem to be particularly academically brilliant he did; however, take on extra classes in science and in four European languages.After graduating in 1837 and into the early 1840s Thoreau was occupied as a schoolteacher and tutor. Thoreau actually took over management of Concord Academy in 1838 and subsequently introduced
Bronson Alcott's progressive principles of education where physical punishments were abandoned and pupils wereencouraged to participate in classroom discussion.
A canoe trip in 1839 convinced Thoreau that he should not pursue a schoolteacher's career but should instead aim to become established as a poet of nature.Thoreau came to consider that he needed time and space to apply himselaswriterand on July 4th 1845 he moved to a crude hut that he had himself constructed and roughly furnished, using second-hand materials, on land recently purchased by Emerson alongside the northern shore of Walden Pond (which is actually more of a small lake than a pond) which lay a short way outside Concord. He lived there until September 1847 providing the bulk of his foodstuffs through the cultivation of beans, potatoes, peas, and turnips. He also atewild berries and apples. During this period Thoreau cultivated a tolerant relationship with local animal, bird,and fish life such that several individuals from these species came at his call, forgot their fear of man, and became tame and even affectionate.In 1846 Thoreau began writing about his experiences living relatively simply, and idyllically, in a roughly fashioned small house set beside a lake in his work "Walden". On page 69 we read:-
A canoe trip in 1839 convinced Thoreau that he should not pursue a schoolteacher's career but should instead aim to become established as a poet of nature.Thoreau came to consider that he needed time and space to apply himselaswriterand on July 4th 1845 he moved to a crude hut that he had himself constructed and roughly furnished, using second-hand materials, on land recently purchased by Emerson alongside the northern shore of Walden Pond (which is actually more of a small lake than a pond) which lay a short way outside Concord. He lived there until September 1847 providing the bulk of his foodstuffs through the cultivation of beans, potatoes, peas, and turnips. He also atewild berries and apples. During this period Thoreau cultivated a tolerant relationship with local animal, bird,and fish life such that several individuals from these species came at his call, forgot their fear of man, and became tame and even affectionate.In 1846 Thoreau began writing about his experiences living relatively simply, and idyllically, in a roughly fashioned small house set beside a lake in his work "Walden". On page 69 we read:-
"For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living. The whole of my winters, as well as most of my summers, I had free and clear for study." |
Thoreau's work is skeptical about the real benefits of long hours spent working and also skeptical about thereal benefits of economic development itself. For Thoreau it seemed that such development should be justified by having a clear moral or intellectual purpose.In 1854 Thoreau's "Walden" was published
Since these times "Walden" has been printed in over two undred different editions in English besides being translated into some fifty other languages for publication. It is said to have been an inspiration to such persons as Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King besides whilst also being an inspiration for environmentalism across the world.
In the second chapter entitled "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For," Thoreau wrote, "Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star ... In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment ... And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us." By living intimately with nature at Walden, Thoreau hoped to attain to higher transcendental truth.
Henry David Thoreau was only forty five years of age at the time of his death from Tuberculosis in May 1862.
Since these times "Walden" has been printed in over two undred different editions in English besides being translated into some fifty other languages for publication. It is said to have been an inspiration to such persons as Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King besides whilst also being an inspiration for environmentalism across the world.
In the second chapter entitled "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For," Thoreau wrote, "Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star ... In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment ... And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us." By living intimately with nature at Walden, Thoreau hoped to attain to higher transcendental truth.
Henry David Thoreau was only forty five years of age at the time of his death from Tuberculosis in May 1862.
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