Search results
People also ask
Did Henry David Thoreau write a poem?
How did Henry David Thoreau contribute to New England Transcendentalism?
Did Henry David Thoreau have a place in American philosophy?
Who was Henry David Thoreau?
Browse a selection of Thoreau's poems, some of which were published in The Dial, a transcendentalist magazine. Find poems on topics such as nature, conscience, love, friendship, and more.
- Friendship
Henry David Thoreau online. Share Tweet Friendship. by Henry...
- Free Love
Henry David Thoreau online. Share Tweet Free Love. by Henry...
- All Things Are Current Found
Henry David Thoreau online. Share Tweet All Things Are...
- Friendship
- Philosophy
- Influence
- Early life and education
- Writing
- Early career
- Later career
- Contents
- Reviews
- Themes
- Significance
- Legacy
- Later life
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
Though not a professional philosopher, Henry David Thoreau is recognized as an important contributor to the American literary and philosophical movement known as New England Transcendentalism. His essays, books, and poems weave together two central themes over the course of his intellectual career: nature and the conduct of life. The continuing imp...
Thoreaus importance as a philosophical writer was little appreciated during his lifetime, but his two most noted works, Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854) and Civil Disobedience (1849), gradually developed a following and by the latter half of the twentieth century had become classic texts in American thought. Not only have these texts been used ...
David Henry Thoreau was born on 12 July 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts, to John and Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau. He had two older siblings, Helen and John, and a younger sister, Sophia. The family moved to Chelmsford in 1818, to Boston in 1821, and back to Concord in 1823. Thoreau had two educations in Concord. The first occurred through his exploration...
In 1839 Thoreau met Ellen Sewall, the daughter of a Unitarian minister. At least partly on her fathers advice, she rejected Thoreaus proposal of marriage. Thoreaus writing career was launched the following year when he began publishing essays and poems in Emerson and Margaret Fullers new journal, The Dial, which became the home of much Transcendent...
Thoreau worked off and on at his fathers pencil-making business, and in 1843 he served for a short time as tutor for Emersons brother Edwards children on Staten Island, New York. Then, in 1845, he built a small cabin near Walden Pond on land that Ralph Waldo Emerson had purchased to preserve its beauty. During his two-year stay at the pond Thoreau ...
After leaving Walden, Thoreau spent a year living in Emersons home, helping with handiwork and the children while Emerson was lecturing in Europe. In January 1848 he gave a two-part lecture at the Concord Lyceum titled The Relation of the Individual to the State. The lecture was published in revised form as Resistance to Civil Government in Elizabe...
In Resistance to Civil Government Thoreau works out his conception of the self-reliant individuals relationship to the state. The essay begins with an idealistic Transcendentalist hope for a government which governs not at all. But it quickly takes a practical turn, asking what one can doand what one ought to dowhen the state acts in a systematical...
After the cool reception of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Thoreau traveled to Maine, Cape Cod, New Hampshire, and Canada. His excursions provided the material for future writing projects. He also continued to revise Walden; it appeared in 1854, the second and last book Thoreau published during his lifetime. Walden is unquestionably Th...
To bring readers to their own awakenings, Thoreau first raises the question of a lifes economy. He experiments with living deliberately, paying attention to what he owns and what owns him, as well as to how he spends his time. An explicit antimaterialism underwrites much of the first two chapters. Thoreau does not dogmatically endorse an economic m...
Nature also provides a metaphor for human growth. As many commentators have pointed out, the seasons of the text reveal the continuing possibilities for self-cultivation; one need not accept any routinized existence as final. Moreover, throughout the work Thoreau treats the reader to shifting focuses on morning, afternoon, and evening, revealing th...
Thoreaus nature study became more scientifically serious and less Transcendentalist in his later works. The Succession of Forest Trees, which he delivered as a lecture to the Middlesex Agricultural Society on 20 September 1860 and published in The New York Weekly Tribune, marks this turn in Thoreaus career. Like many others, he had purchased and re...
During much of the last third of his life Thoreau earned his living by helping in the family business and by working as a surveyor. His surveying provided ample opportunity to continue his studies of nature. But these years were marred by recurring bouts of tuberculosis, a disease common to the time and to Thoreaus family. In 1861 Thoreau suffered ...
Learn about the life and works of Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist poet and philosopher who wrote about nature and the conduct of life. Explore his essays, books, and poems, such as Walden, Civil Disobedience, and Walking.
- I Was Made Erect and Lone. ‘I Was Made Erect and Lone’ by Henry David Thoreau is a poem about trusting in your own individual autonomy. This is probably not the most well-known poem by Henry David Thoreau, but it is a powerfully succinct one about some of Transcendentalism's core tenets.
- Friendship. ‘Friendship’ is about the love Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson had for one another. This poem describes the nature of true devotion and how two souls are tied in a bond of love, goodness, and truthfulness.
- Indeed, Indeed I Cannot Tell. Thoreau’s ‘Indeed, Indeed I cannot Tell’ was written about Ellen Sewall. This piece manages to relate with almost every living human being and communicates a feeling that is familiar for many.
- My life has been the poem I would have writ. ‘My life has been the poem I would have writ’ is a simple two-line work, but within those two lines, contains many subtle grammar.
Read poems by Henry David Thoreau, the American writer and philosopher who advocated a lifestyle of self-sufficiency and simplicity. Explore his texts, biography, and related poets on this web page.
Nature. Henry David Thoreau. 1817 –. 1862. O Nature! I do not aspire. To be the highest in thy quire,— To be a meteor in the sky, Or comet that may range on high; Only a zephyr that may blow. Among the reeds by the river low; Give me thy most privy place. Where to run my airy race. In some withdrawn, unpublic mead. Let me sigh upon a reed,
Inspiration. Henry David Thoreau. 1817 –. 1862. Whate’er we leave to God, God does, And blesses us; The work we choose should be our own, God leaves alone.
Read Henry David Thoreau's poem about the fleeting nature of life and the hope for renewal. The poem compares a bouquet of flowers to a human existence that is plucked and placed in a vase.
Searches related to henry david thoreau poems
