Famous Henrys Throughout Time, Part II

Henry David Thoreau
1817-1862


Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862), American writer, philosopher, and naturalist, whose work demonstrates how the abstract ideals of libertarianism and individualism can be effectively instilled in a person's life. Born in Concord, Massachusetts, Thoreau was educated at Harvard University. In the late 1830s and early 1840s he taught school and tutored in Concord and on Staten Island, New York. From 1841 to 1843 Thoreau lived in the home of American essayist and transcendental philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, where he met other American transcendentalists, such as educator and philosopher Bronson Alcott, social reformer Margaret Fuller, and literary critic George Ripley (see Transcendentalism). In 1845 Thoreau moved to a crude hut on the shores of Walden Pond, a small body of water on the outskirts of Concord. He lived there until 1847, resided again with Emerson from 1847 to 1848, and spent the years from 1849 with his parents and sister in Concord. During his residence at Walden Pond and elsewhere in Concord, Thoreau supported himself by doing odd jobs, such as gardening, carpentry, and land surveying. The major portion of his time was devoted to the study of nature, to meditating on philosophical problems, to reading Greek, Latin, French, and English literature, and to long conversations with his neighbors.

Of the numerous volumes that make up the collected works of Thoreau, only two were published during his lifetime: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) and Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854). The material for most of the other volumes was edited posthumously by the author's friends from his journals, manuscripts, and letters. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is the narrative of a boating trip that Thoreau took with his brother in August 1839; it is a combination of nature study and metaphysical speculation and bears the distinctive impress of the author's engaging personality. In Walden, his most enduring and popular work, Thoreau explains his motives for living apart from society and devoting himself to a simple lifestyle and to the observation of nature. His writing style seems at first plain and direct, but witty similes, etymological puns, and allusions and plays on conventional proverbs dislocate conventional meanings and force the reader into a mode of reconsideration and reevaluation.

In 1846 Thoreau chose to go to jail rather than to support the Mexican War (1846-1848) by paying his poll tax. He clarified his position in perhaps his most famous essay, "Civil Disobedience" (1849), now widely referred to by its original title, "Resistance to Civil Government." In this essay Thoreau discussed passive resistance, a method of protest that later was adopted by Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi as a tactic against the British, and by civil rights activists fighting racial segregation in the United States. The edited collections of Thoreau's writings include Excursions (1863), which contains the well-known essay "Walking" The Maine Woods (1864); Cape Cod (1865); and A Yankee in Canada (1866). In 1993 Faith in a Seed appeared, a previously unpublished collection of Thoreau's natural-history writings featuring the essay "The Dispersion of Seeds."