Henry David Thoreau�Presented by�Dr. O. D. Kudalkar

Transcendentalism

• A philosophical and literature movement
• Started by Emerson
• Critics of:
• Contemporary society for its unthinking conformity
• Logic and materialism
• Goals/Values:
• Want individuals to find an original relation to the universe
• Discover real truth through intuition, spirituality, and our relationship with the rest of the universe

Henry David Thoreau

• Taught, but quit after two weeks because he refused to use corporal punishment on students
• Published first book of transcendental poetry in 1840
• Admired Emerson, and lived with Emerson and his family from 1841-1844
• Actively fought against slavery and wrote to support the work of his fellow abolitionists

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Thoreau's Beliefs

• Both spiritual and scientific
• In science:
• Supported Darwin’s, then controversial, theory
• "Science is always brave, for to know, is to know good; doubt and danger quail before her eye.”
• Aware of science’s limitations, “With all your science can you tell how it is — & whence it is, that light comes into the soul?“
• In religion:
• "I do not prefer one religion or philosophy to another. I have no sympathy with the bigotry and ignorance which make transient and partial and puerile distinctions between one man’s faith or form of faith & another’s”

Civil Disobedience

• Thought it a person’s duty to fight injustice wherever it is found
• "Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? . . . Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then?“
• This essay inspired:
• Gandhi
• Tolstoy
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Walden

• As a naturalist, believes that the only way to understand our life on earth is to develop a greater understanding of the natural world
• “We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight…We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander."

Found Poetry

• Takes existing texts and refashions them
• Literary equivalent of a collage
• A pure found poem incorporates only words from outside works
• Forming the poem itself (where to break lines and so on) are up to the poet
• The original meaning of the text should remain intact, but doubles the context (is a reflection of Thoreau’s and your transcendental ideas)