"Henry David Thoreau: A Very Short Introduction highlights Thoreau as a key figure in the American Transcendentalist movement and an influential thinker whose work continues to resonate globally. His masterpiece Walden chronicles his two-year experiment in simple living, blending nature writing with philosophical reflection. Thoreau's work provokes polarized reactions, from admiration for his environmental foresight to criticism of his perceived individualism. This VSI explores key themes in Thoreau's writings, including self-reliance, nonconformity, and environmental consciousness, while acknowledging the controversies surrounding his life and legacy. It situates Thoreau within both his historical moment and the broader literary tradition"--
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was a leading figure in the American Transcendentalist movement, with worldwide influence as essayist, social thinker, naturalist-environmentalist, and sage. Thoreau's Walden, an autobiographical narrative of his two-year sojourn in a self-built lakeside cabin, is one of the most widely studied works of American literature. His essay "Civil Disobedience" is a classic of American political activism and a model for nonviolent reform movements around the world. Esteemed Thoreau scholar Lawrence Buell gives due consideration to all significant aspects of Thoreau's art and thought while framing key issues and complexities in historical and literary context.
"When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond..."
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was a leading figure in the American Transcendentalist movement and the era of U. S. literary emergence, an intellectual with worldwide influence as essayist, social thinker, naturalist-environmentalist, and sage. Thoreau's Walden, an autobiographical narrative of his two-year sojourn in a self-built lakeside cabin, is one of the most widely studied works of American literature. It has generated scores of literary imitations and thousands of neo-Walden experiments in back-to-basics living, both rural and urban. Thoreau's great essay, "Civil Disobedience," is a classic of American political activism and a model for nonviolent reform movements around the world. Thoreau also stands as an icon of modern American environmentalism, the father of American nature writing, a forerunner of modern ecology, and a harbinger of freelance spirituality combining the wisdom of west and east.
Thoreau is also a controversial figure. From his day to ours, he has provoked sharply opposite reactions ranging from reverence to dismissal. Scholars have regularly offered conflicting assessments of the significance of his work, the evolution of his thought, even the facts of his life. Some disagreements are in the eye of the beholder, but many follow from challenges posed by his own cross-grained idiosyncrasies. He was an advocate for individual self-sufficiency who never broke away from home, a self-professed mystic now also acclaimed as a pioneer natural and applied scientist, and a seminal theorist of nonviolent protest who defended the most notorious guerrilla fighter of his day. All told, he remains a rather enigmatic figure both despite and because we know so much about him, beginning with the two-million-word journal he kept throughout his adult life. The esteemed Thoreau scholar Lawrence Buell gives due consideration to all these aspects of Thoreau's art and thought, framing key issues and complexities in historical and literary context.
