THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS’ TRANSCENDENTALIST

Henry David Thoreau

Overview“The end of life is education.” (Harvard

senior)Life is an experiment. Self-educationPart-time jobs (teacher, handy man,

editor, pencil manufacturer)Reduced his needs to allow time to

educate himself in the manner he saw fit.His lifestyle was misunderstood, even by his

friend Emerson. (funeral)

Thoreau’s Reality

On a personal level he was very ambitious.stripped life of inessentials to understand

what was essential (Thoreau would not have cable t.v.)

lived in a hut in the woods for two years (Walden Pond)

became the self-reliant, non-conformist that Emerson urged people to be

“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.”

Why live in a hut in the woods?

It’s away from society (conformity)Education through closeness with natureThe relation of the order and beauty of nature to

the human mind and spirit. (subject of Walden)His experience attempted to proved it is possible

to transcend our circumstances and to feel our individual being in relation to all being, to feel the spirit in ourselves which is also the spirit of the universe.

Arrested-it is an individual’s moral responsibility to resist an immoral gov’t

Final thoughts

Of all the Transcendentalists, Henry David Thoreau’s life reflected his beliefs more than any other.

His writings became popular after his deathThoreau died in 1862 of Tuberculosis before

his 45th birthday