Nature Ralph Walden Emerson and Henry David Thoreau Walden

Author, Henry David Thoreau and Mary Oliver are both very passionate about nature and what it has to offer in life, as well as the symbolism behind nature and its creatures in their works of literature, in “Walden”, and “The House of Light”, Both authors discuss their views of nature and the beauty of the world that they want to make familiar to their audience. In this essay, I’ll provide my reasoning behind this statement.

Henry David Thoreau was a great American writer, philosopher, and naturalist of the 1800’s who’s writings have influenced many famous leaders in the 20th century, as well as in his own lifetime. Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1817, where he was later educated at Harvard University. Thoreau was a transcendentalist writer, which means that he believed that intuition and the individual conscience “transcend” experience and are better guides to truth than are the senses and logical reason (Prentice Hall 1174). Thoreau is well known for writing Walden Pond, Excursions, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, and A Yankee in Canada. In 1849 Henry David Thoreau wrote an essay

“Nature” is an essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and published by James Munroe and Company in 1836. [1] “Nature” has a total of 41 pages. The essay consists of eight parts: Nature, Commodity, Beauty, Language, Discipline, Idealism, Spirit and Prospects. Each part takes a different perspective on the relationship between humans and nature. In this essay, Emerson emphasizes the foundation of transcendentalism, “a religious and philosophical movement that developed during the late 1820s and 30s in the Eastern region of the United States as protest against the general state of spirituality and, in particular, the state of intellectualism.” [2] “Transcendentalism suggests that the divine, or God, suffuses nature, and suggests that reality can be understood by studying nature.” [3] “Transcendentalism is closely related to Unitarianism, the dominant religious movement in Boston at the early nineteenth century. Transcendentalism evolved as an organic consequence of the Unitarian emphasis on free conscience and the value of intellectual reason.” [4] Emerson divides nature into four stages: commodity, beauty, language, and discipline. These define the ways by which humans use nature for their basic needs. The historical significance of “Nature” was that transcendentalism club led the celebration of the American experiment as one of the individualism and self-reliance. [5]

Henry David Thoreau, follower of Emerson’s ideas, wrote Walden (Life in the Woods )as a result of his experiment to find extraordinary in the ordinary. This experiment was Thoreau living at Walden Pond in Concord,Massachusetts for two years and two months. What Thoreau found in his experience was the joys of simplicity and the expansion of the concepts presented in Emerson’s work. In the passage titled “Economy”, Thoreau describes the effort he put in building his house and the cost of it all. Although the price of the materials is cheap, totaling up to a whopping “$28.12 ½” (Thoreau 384)., the work Thoreau put into this house and the feeling of accomplishment for him was priceless. Thoreau expressed his concern of other not awed by the pure joy of creating a house by questioning, “Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does architecture amount to in the experience of the mass of men?” (Thoreau 312). Although building a house may seem like a simple man’s task, Thoreau

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were the giants during the 19th century American Transcendentalism movement. Their influential work brought upon shared beliefs on concerning spiritual perspectives, government interference, and the ideology of cultural values in American society. Nature has a multitude of meaning if looked at it from all angles, but deeper within nature is the reflection of what you exert while in it. However they agree on the human condition, the two authors speak with different tones that reflect how nature affects the entirety of man’s spirit. While both Emerson and Thoreau practice the spirit of the human condition, Emerson focused his energy on how “[nature’s] philosophical import [is]…unchanged by man” (215.) where Thoreau implied that we are “subjects of an experiment” (1051).

A Comparison of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Beliefs concerning Simplicity, the Value and Potential of Our Soul, and Our Imagination.Henry David Thoreau tests Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideas about nature by living at Walden Pond, where he discovers that simplicity in physical aspects brings deepness to our mind, our soul to its fullest potential, and our imagination to be uplifted to change our lives. These two men believe that nature is what forces us not to depend on others’ ideas but to develop our own. Nature is ever changing so we must keep searching for explanations about human life. They feel that nature is the key to knowing all.Thoreau lives at Walden Pond to find the true meaning of life. He wants to experience

Nature is a major transcendental value which both Emerson and Thoreau thrive off of. Emerson

In this passage from Walden by Thoreau, the author articulates beautifully how he lives his life, why, and how he has adapted to his new home. Thoreau wishes to live a more free life where he can write and live void of responsibility, he wants to get the most from the remainder of his life by determining what is truly important, and he did this by removing himself as best he could from the normal life of Concord, Massachusetts in the 1840's to a decrepit cabin in the woods. Part of this was economic: he reduced his material needs by living in a simpler way, so that he would not have to spend much time supporting a lifestyle that he did not need

In 1854, Henry David Thoreau gave us what would become his most famous non-fiction book, Walden; or life in the Woods. In this, Thoreau describes his project at Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau decided that he was going to live “deliberately” in the woods for over two years and live off of a limited economy and isolate himself from society in order to gain a more objective understanding of it. But one has to ask the question, what does Thoreau mean that he wants to “live ‘deliberately’”? Thoreau himself said that he wanted to “live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”(Thoreau, 61) He wanted

A significant philosopher of the pre-Civil War era of the United States, Henry David Thoreau appeared to be above the standard with his philosophically driven life style. He wrote detailed accounts of his life in his book titled Walden, in which he expressed his desire to escape the confining pressures of human society. His second chapter lauded the concepts of individualism and self-sufficiency, yet he never took into account the potential harm of his mentality, for it could hurt individuals as well as communities, and modern life simply cannot support his ideals.

Walden, by Henry David Thoreau describes the events and the thoughts that came to Thoreau all through his time living at Walden Pond in the eighteenth century. Henry David Thoreau was a poet and a theorist who experienced a life of ease so that he could create a relationship between nature, people, and God. His narrative in Walden depicted many themes, for example the significance of the natural world, the implication of development, the meaning of detail, and the connection between the body and mind. He also urbanized many theoretical ideas about living a simple and natural life, and

Again in Walden, Thoreau wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately” [1854]. It is quite strange that Thoreau had chosen to live in woods purposely. Perhaps one reason can be that he is a transcendentalist but one must not forget that he had discovered about the Walden Pond when he was deliberately living in the woods. However, another possible explanation can be that woods are not dominated or are controlled by anyone, nature lives freely in world. Therefore, a reader can

In the early mid-nineteenth century, a philosophical movement known as transcendentalism took root and flourished in America. It evolved into a predominantly literary expression which placed an emphasis on the corruptions of organized religion, political parties, and societal involvement; above all, the movement promoted the wonders of “nature” and its deep connection to the divine. The adherents through transcendentalism believed that knowledge could be arrived through intuition and contemplation of the internal spirit rather than by the means of the senses. As the two most prominent figures in the transcendentalist movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau whole-heartedly embrace the principles of nature

The summer of 1845 found Henry David Thoreau living in a rude shack on the banks of Walden Pond. The actual property was owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great American philosopher. Emerson had earlier published the treatise entitled "Nature," and the young Thoreau was profoundly affected by its call for individuality and self-reliance. Thoreau planted a small garden, took pen and paper, and began to record the of life at Walden.

    “Where I Lived and What I Lived For” illustrates the philosophical thinking of Henry David Thoreau during his time at Walden Pond. Thoreau’s goal was to “front only the essential facts of live” and “live deliberately”. His essay is often revered for the self-sufficient and individualistic thinking that he brought to his readers, but despite all the reverence, such principles could tear apart a community. Although the essay was written in the 1850s, many of his arguments for self-sufficiency and individualism hold true today.